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4 July 2005 / Monday -- the 4th of July - National Holiday
There was a sort of large-ish fly bothering me at the computer yesterday -- I normally do not go out of my way to kill annoying flies, but I slapped it with something light, it fell, and continued on -- smacked it again, same thing, then I whacked it, and noticed what I thought were leg fragments where it dropped -- and they were still moving. But somehow there seemed to be too many leg fragments, so I took out my loop, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but fly larvae, and not leg fragments! I started thinking back to when I did some work in insects, and vaguely recalled that flies lay eggs, and the eggs hatch into maggots or larvae -- I did a Giggle (hey, you already know that is what I call Google!) search online and effectively, it seemed that flies lay eggs. This sort of perked my imagination somewhat -- flies are supposed to lay eggs, this one was viviparous, or brought out living larval stages instead of eggs -- I found an old medicine vial and put some rubbing alcohol in, placing the fly and all the worm-like beasties I could find inside. They squirmed for quite a while, although the fly itself, assumingly a female, seemed deader than a proverbial doornail.
I took two very impromptu
photos of the beast --
-- one cannot really appreciate too much detail, even though I
added the largest scale image
to the upper right of the reduced size original -- I did not pose
it or pin it or anything, and do not have those supplies here,
they are in Tenerife -- 
-- I did this in as
little time as possible, and did not add a metric ruler for scale
-- the fly is about 1cm
long in body length, and the larvae varied too much to
estimate a length because they elongated and contracted themselves.
I do not have my dissecting microscope here, so I could not look
at details.
OK, can I find another one like this -- I occasionally (not always) see a fly or two navigating somewhere in the apartment -- most get in from outside when I open the outer door downstairs -- a couple may get in through a tear in one of the screens in the ratty old storm windows (which I have wanted to replace for several years, but never find the money) -- I do not open the inner windows very frequently -- it has been very hot, so I try to keep the place as tight as I can, run the air conditioner in my study, and infrequently in the kitchen when I am cooking. Anyways, I found another fly sitting on the shower ceiling light, and that was easy to catch, hitting it lightly with a sponge -- it was about the same size as the first, and I used another small plastic bottle to put that one in -- it too had the larvae, which apparently escaped from the female while it was floating in the alcohol, wriggling just as the first batch did. How about the kitchen? Two smaller ones in there -- instead of swatting them with something, I wanted to keep them as intact as possible, so I put a small transparent glass tumbler over one, slid an index card under, and put it in the refrigerator to calm down -- the other one I hit lightly, and into the 2nd container they both went. It seems that the two smaller ones may not be the same species, or perhaps are males -- I did not analyze any of them for lack of necessary tools. On first look, the wings of the smaller ones are seemingly slightly different from those of the larger females.
About a week ago I swatted a large fly in the kitchen, one that Ziggy, the young male cat, was jumping around after -- I put it in the sink and splashed it with water so it would move around less, allowing the cat to play with it. I was somewhat surprised that he would not hold it in his mouth, only seeming mildly stimulated by it -- when I showed the fly to one of my older females, she did not even seem to notice it, which I thought was very odd -- all my cats had been very active in playing with and catching insects in the past and I thought their disinterest was notable. I am assuming that fly was the same kind of female I caught yesterday evening, which might suggest that they secrete some kind of a scent which makes animals avoid them to some degree? I am just guessing here.
Now, after finding two live bearing females (I assume they are females -- some insect females lay eggs in / on the male, and they hatch there), I became somewhat more inquisitive, so my wandering mind Giggled another fly, this one specific, and simply picked at random from my cerebral files -- the Tsetse fly, apparently still very common in many poor rural areas of Africa, and a carrier of sleeping sickness and other diseases, which are usually fatal if not attended to -- Guess what -- the first link I found stated that the females hatch the larvae inside their body! HOLY SHIT! Can this be? Are these flies flapping around Trenton? Who would ever notice, after swatting them, that the larvae scattered all over the place, and might eventually hatch into more Tsetse flies! Where the hell did they come from, IF that is what they are?
African produce / foodstuffs brought over by the many illegal African aliens in the area? From the Sam's Club food I buy? Through bird migrations? The cattle egret does appear in the wetlands of southern New Jersey, and that avian species comes from Africa -- I assume there may be other migrating African species also. On airlines? The flies fly into the craft in Africa, when aloft it is colder and they get dormant until landing again, in Newark, Dallas, Los Angeles, flying away to continue their lives in a new environment, which, during the summer, might not be very different from that where they came from.
Bioterrorism? What a novel approach to use -- how many people ever look at flies that closely, they just kill them. The medical doctors here would not think of identifying symptoms of Tsetse fly born diseases, since theoretically the flies do not exist here! Business as usual, not enough experience, too much other work to do, not inquisitive enough, and certainly not trained about these tropical phenomena to any great extent -- and they always complain that they are overworked.
It is very possible that I am completely wrong about these flies -- I do not have the things needed to study the anatomy and wings, compare them to what might be called our generic, normal flies (which are several), mount the insects for better photos, or have microphotography capability. I do not want to take them to some government laboratory, simply because I do not trust any of our agencies farther than I can throw them. It took them several months to announce that they found another case of mad cow disease -- it was in the news about a week ago. What I might do is call my vet on Tuesday, tomorrow, early, and ask if I can see him about something privately -- he does have an electronic microphotography apparatus, and the pics can probably be conveniently loaded to my 512MB memory stick -- I could then study them right here. He seems kewl, but can I trust him to not call in the feds, or make the potential news public before I myself do the work with the materials?
Am I hallucinating here, or can this possibly be the scientific scoop of the century -- it will be the task of someone else to figure out where they came from, what their distribution is in the USA, their epidemiology and all the other nasty things usually associated with them. Maybe I might contact some magazine or news wire, and offer them the story, perhaps for a price, stating that I wish to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons -- would there be movie rights, a best seller, paid invitations to the talk show circuit? (actually, I am writing this with a sarcastic smirk on my face!) Am I being naive in writing about this here on my web site? I do not have an RSS feed, so very few would even read this stuff. I might ask some friends about it, and I may remove this info from this page, until I think the time is right -- I would, of course, make a special report about it (consider this the unofficial forward ). Once the news is out, I really do not give a shit who does the follow up research -- I assume it would be done, and I would not keep my mouth shut about the find, unless, maybe, I am offered a considerable bribe -- maybe I would just disappear and never be found? Nah, I never wanted to go to Aruba.
I just removed this material from its original inclusion on my current news page, and shall continue writing about this subject here
stay tuned for more information -- hopefully this will turn out not to be true
God bless us if it is!
26 July 2005 / Tuesday -- I added a page of some photos I found on the InterNUT of the genus Sarcophaga, the flesh fly, as well as several of one of my specimens, which is very similar -- I am now convinced that these flies are NOT the African one my sometimes overly creative wandering mind thought they might possibly be, above -- I was beginning to sound like a checkout counter tabloid or something! Hey, they would most likely love this story.
References : African Sleeping Sickness / Tsetse Fly / Tsetse FAQ / Glossina / Trypanosoma / Tsetse Fly 2 / Sleeping Sickness / Tsetse Fly 3 /
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