I just finished reading Cracked.com's article on the 5 most horrifying bugs in the world, which I'm going to share with you after I finish typing this entry to prevent your attention from getting diverted. It's interesting. Really!
The last bug they featured was the botfly.
It may look like your everyday housefly, but there is more to it than meets the eye. There are several species - each named after a specific animal. The one above is a rabbit botfly. There are horse botflies and rat botflies among approximately 150 species worldwide.
So if you ask why they are named as such, I'm about to give you the answer so brace yourselves. This one pictured above, for instance, isn't called a rabbit botfly because it looks like a rabbit. No. In fact, it doesn't even come close to looking like a rabbit. It has its name because its larvae are physically designed to burrow inside living, breathing rabbits. Each species is designated to be parasite to specific organisms.
This is where it gets gross and scary for us. There are such things as HUMAN BOTFLIES. Yes. Living around the Americas -- from Mexico to Northern Argentina to Chile -- are these skin-burrowing, flesh-eating creepy crawlies. How it goes is like this: Female human botflies lay their eggs onto mosquitoes and other insects that are known to land on human skin. When they do land on us, the eggs will hatch by our body temperature and the larvae will immediately burrow their way into our skins.
Like this:
No, that's not an oversized acne. That's a human botfly maggot thriving underneath a living, breathing human being's skin. And just to make it absolutely clear to everyone: THAT's NOT ME! I just borrowed this photo from someone else's website. Credits below.
Here's an HD YouTube video by AB93552 of three of those things being removed from a man's elbow. ENJOY!
Photos borrowed from:
Photos borrowed from:
And here's that Cracked.com article I was talking about:
