Maggots emerge from fly eggs that are laid wherever there is a safe place and a fresh source of food for the new brood of maggots to feed on. Mature flies will lay between 75 -150 eggs at a time in places like trash, carrion, feces, or rotting food. These eggs hatch into maggots between 7 – 24 hours.
How Do Maggots Form?
Maggots usually hatch from their eggs 24 hours after they were laid. Maggots will double in size in roughly two days, and they must go through the molting process. Molting occurs when maggots shed the outer coverings of their bodies, which is called an exoskeleton. Shedding this exoskeleton allows maggots to grow rapidly, and they will usually go through this molting process three times.
After their third molt, maggots will dig into whatever substance they are feeding on to begin their pupa stage, which is similar to hibernation. During this hibernation, maggots will transform into flies. The entire process from egg to fly usually lasts just over two weeks. Once a fly emerges from this shell, its lifespan is relatively short, and they usually live no more than one month.
Fly Larvae and Temperature
The best conditions for maggots to hatch, grow, and develop include the following characteristics:
- Wet/moist environments: Maggots prefer wet, moist environments because their bodies can easily become dehydrated and dry out. Maggots are often on decaying matter that contains moisture.
- Warm/hot environments: Maggots prefer warm or hot environments since maggots develop much slower in cooler temperatures. Warmer temperatures speed up the development process of maggots, which means they can go from eggs to full-grown flies much quicker in warm environments.
- Dark environments: Maggots prefer darker environments since environments that are too bright can be deadly to maggots. Maggots have special light-sensing cells on their bodies that can detect areas that may be too bright for survival.
Since maggots prefer wet and warm environments, the summer months are ideal for the growth and development of these larvae. Maggots are often found on rotting vegetables, fruits, or animal carcasses; these locations provide the moist environment they prefer.
Some people believe that maggots can appear out of nowhere. Maggots often seem to come out of nowhere because their eggs are very small, and they hatch very quickly. A fly can lay eggs on a rotting vegetable or animal carcass, and people may not easily see these eggs since they are so small. When these eggs hatch and the maggots appear, it seems as though these maggots come out of nowhere.
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Interestingly, maggots can serve a purpose in the medical and forensic science fields. For hundreds of years, doctors used maggots to help with wound healing and prevent infection. When applied to a wound, maggots can help debride the wound. Wound debridement refers to removing dead tissue, which helps a wound heal. Additionally, bacteria can grow quickly in dead tissues. Therefore, removing this dead tissue can help prevent infections as well.
In 2004, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved the medical use of maggots to aid in wound healing. Unfortunately, maggots can also enter human skin by burrowing through the skin. During this process, maggots can secrete a substance that acts as a painkiller, making their presence less noticeable to the person.
Maggots are also used in forensic science by helping to detect the time of death of a person. Since the lifecycle of maggots is well understood, forensic scientists can study the size and age of maggots on a dead body to accurately determine the time of death.
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There are a few other uses of maggots which include:
- Composting: Maggots are great at creating compost. Compost is a by-product of the breakdown of organic substances, such as table scraps, and it is a nutrient-rich material that can improve soil quality.
- Preventing bad smelling waste: Bacteria growing and feeding on the decaying matter can produce a foul smell. Maggots can prevent this foul smell by consuming decaying matter before bacteria can grow and feed on it.
- Fishing: Maggots can be used in fishing, much like earthworms.
Even though maggots have useful purposes, most people do not want them in their homes. One of the most effective ways to get rid of maggots is to pour boiling water over them; the hot temperatures of the boiling water will kill the maggots. However, the best way to rid a location of maggots is to prevent their presence in the first place. People can do this by keeping an area clean and removing any old food or dead animals that may provide a place for flies to lay their eggs.
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Maggots are the larvae of the common fly, and the scientific name for the common housefly is Musca domestica. Maggots look like short worms, and they have tube-like mouths with hooks that are located on the tapered end of their bodies. The life cycle of a maggot begins as a tiny egg laid by a fly, and worm-like larvae hatch from these eggs. Larvae feed and grow very quickly, which requires them to molt. Molting refers to when maggots shed their exoskeletons so their bodies can grow. After their third molt, maggots will go through a pupa stage which involves maggots developing a dark, hard protective shell much like a cocoon. In this cocoon, the bodies of maggots turn into flies which will eventually break free of the protective shell. The entire life cycle from egg to fly usually lasts just over two weeks.
Maggots prefer wet, warm, and dark environments. Warm temperatures can speed up their life cycle. Therefore, the life cycle of maggots during the warm summer months will usually be the shortest. Maggots can serve a few useful purposes. Maggots can be applied to wounds and help with wound debridement, which refers to the removal of the dead tissues of a wound. Removing these dead tissues can help speed the healing process and prevent infection. Maggots are also used in forensic sciences to determine the time of death of a person, composting, preventing bad smells, and fishing.
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The Civil War battle of Gettysburg saw butchery on a scale that is shocking to this day. Thousands of bodies, both human and animal, were left on the battlefield for extended periods of time before they were buried in shallow graves. Even after being buried, heavy rainfall and wild animals unearthed the corpses. The amount of flies in the area has been described as moving in clouds. Flies start their lives as maggots. Lets investigate maggots and their part of the fly life cycle.
Maggots are the precursors to flies known as larva. They are whitish-transparent, worm-like organisms that are, on average, about 3 to 9 mm (≈ 1/10 to just over 1/3of an inch) in length. During the three larval stages, they devour rotting organic material such as dead animals and animal waste. The body of the maggot is tapered, and the end where their mouth is located is smaller than the rest of their body. Maggots are part of the life cycle of the Musca domestica or common house fly.
The life cycle starts with a fly landing on rotting flesh and laying hundreds of eggs. Maggots hatch from these eggs and start consuming the rotting material. In the aftermath of the Gettysburg battle, maggots were not only seen eating corpses, they covered the wounded, squirming as they ate the putrid flesh in their wounds.
Medical knowledge was primitive during this time in history, and bacteria had not yet been discovered. Rot spreads from wound to healthy tissue, which will kill the patient if not controlled. The medical personnel would use chloroform to kill the maggots invading the wounded. Sometimes they would use scalpels to cut away the dead flesh or pour nitric acid on it to dissolve it. It wasnt long before the medical personnel realized the maggots were beneficial. The maggots were on the job full-time removing the dangerous rotting flesh of the wounded. The maggots became an ally in the fight against infection and death by actually supporting the growth of new tissue. In fact, medical-grade maggots are used in modern medicine to treat wounds that are having trouble healing.
How do maggots suddenly appear?
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