Does anybody know where these things come from or what they become??? I have seen many lumps or what I thought were tumors on the backs or legs of the many squirrels we have.
I am now told that these "tumors" are merely "Cocoons" for a type of very large black worm. My neighbor saw one literally "pop open" on the back of the head of a young squirrel. She said it was gross and called animal control to come and get it. The squirrel was in obvious agony, the man cruelly threw it in a box where it screamed in pain, saying, "Yep, it's a Wolf".
"Wolf Worm" parasite
Azalea
They are the larvae of the bot fly. The flies are always around livestock. They lay their eggs on another fly (or mosquito) which deposits them (unknowingly) on the host. They feed on living flesh.Here is a link for rabbits which will give you some info.
http://home.talkcity.com/MemoryLn/cooleys-critters/Botfly.html
Oh Cala, thanks so much, now if I just knew how to get rid of the flies!! We live in a very wooded area, didn't see as many flies as yellow jackets this year. I guess you mean the big "horse flies" which buzz us regularly. There is a cow pasture and some horses about a mile from us. I told my neighbor I would have an answer before bedtime. It continues to amaze me how much knowledge is on this site. Thanks again.
Here is another link
http://entomology.unl.edu/ent108/BOTW/BOTW3_rabbit_botfly.html
rgolde
May 29, 2003
I have a Hen with a round doughnut shaped protrusion on her stomach with a brown center about the size of a thumbnail. The outside is about a finger thick in a circle about the size of small doughnut. Is this the same thing and what is the treatment?
Yuck!
I did hear a story once about a woman who went on one of those wilderness vacations in Costa Rico. She noticed a bump on her head that was sore and would not heal. Her doctor was clueless. It finally hatched out on it's own. I just figured it was one of those "urban legends." Yikes!
http://www.ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly.html
I know this is a really old post, but the neighbor recently found a botfly larvae in his dalmation! YIKES! He said he thought he was hallucinating seeing this creature in a wound on his dog. He had the vet remove it.
Isnt mother nature wondeful? *pukes*
My boss had a worm in her finger last year. She wears gloves now. ;-)
We watched a National Geographic Channel special about a photographer who travelled through the rain forest and picked up all kinds of nasty parasites. Another of their gross-out shows had a guy who had a bot fly larva in his abdomen. He finally had it surgically removed and a photographer in the room at the time missed a shot of the surgeon getting it out and asked him to put it back in so he could get the shot.
*thump*
That's my immitation of me passing out and hitting the floor.
Oh my!!! You are not alone on the floor gardenwife!!! I know better than to read these kinds of things, but I still do it anyway. UGH, now i have a case of obsessive/compulsive itching and feeling every little bump, AAAUUGGHHH!!! Ok, no more gross reading EVER!!!!
GW-was that the one where the fish swan up that man's pee-pee in the river? That was a trip. It had to be surgically removed. They said normally they pray on bulls and other large animals.They showed the one with the guy who had something coming out of his stomach-but he let it get large to see how big it would get and finally the pain was too much to bear. Freaks me out. I am definitely going to keep the cutter close.
I thought it just bit him -- it swam up it?? *urp* If I were a man, I'd be crossing my legs and sweating bullets just thinking about it, I bet.
and it had spines so they couldn't *pull* it out! UGH!
**** woOoOoOoOooOo ****
tHumP
Oh my - what did I start!!!! Glad I missed that show - well, I would have "flipped" before I saw all that.
Oh ya, Saturday morning I woke up and began digging one area of borer infested irises. about 30 mosquito bites later (even with "Off" and "Cutter" on) I soaked in a hot tub for 2 hours praying it would drown any larvae that may have hitched a ride! One on my knuckle I now have coated in fingernail polish-just in case! LOL Now I'm completely paranoid!
Do iris borers bore into people?
No, I was just afraid that one of those mosquitos that bit me while I was digging the irises had transmitted a bot-fly egg (that is one means of infection). The home remedy is to "drown" the larvae with vaseline or nail polish. I'd never heard of one in Georgia, but after Azalea's post I thought I couldn't be too careful. Sorry I didn't mean to confuse the subject! LOL I was panicked when I discovered them -and on my "Dover Beach" Irises, but the point just should've been that it was a very important mission I was on outside when the skeeters were so bad.
Well...The guy in that special tried nail polish, petroleum jelly, and even a raw steak....Bwaahahahahahahahaaaaa
HAHAHAHAHA I am so glad I'm not a man!!!!!!!!!
*gulps*
You guys are So Funny! I'm just grossing out and laughing and laughing. How horrible LOL LOL LOL
OMG! Almost 5 years later! I had to re-read the whole thing....lol
This message was edited Dec 3, 2006 4:40 PM
Yeah- I had forgotten about this thing til someone posted the thing about that poor mouse about a month ago, so I found this old link. I guess it's a good thing to be educated about these things anyway.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/668333/#new
This message was edited Dec 3, 2006 8:32 PM
Gardenwife, I'm cracking up over your thumps!
I'm grossed out too, but not enough to change the ''channel.''
When I mow, I have a fly that insists on trying to get in my nose or mouth. All I can think of is a horse swallowing a bot fly, so I flail around like a madman.
Jenks, I too wouldn't take chances, even tho I'm smiling at you.
Crimson, me too! (Not a man.)
We've loved all of the various pets & critters we've owned thru the years, but sticking our faces up to theirs or allowing vice-versa .. has always been a humongus NO-NO!!
This has extended from our horses, the goat, cows & calves, pet raccoon, chickens, ducks, geese, ferrets, dogs to cats - simply, far too easy to contract yuckies: not to mention where they may have had their mouths and tongues (or beaks), beforehand .. doing what comes naturally, for any animal.
Years ago .. coal oil/kerosene and salt was used to 'draw' the larva out. A tell-tale sign that it had hatched, was when the critter starting licking and/or scratching a particular area and attempting to chew at themselves. You knew the beast was moving about then. Cats and dogs, in particular .. will claw, scratch and bite themselves to try to get at it and remove it. Can make for some gosh-awful wounds, lesions, and sores .. and occasional scarring if/when healed.
Still unsure as to where the term 'wolf' came about - but that's what it had been called for eons!! The Bot fly has a different name (genus/species) for the different hosts of which the bug infects/injects. They're also called 'warble' flies. These naysties lay their eggs under the skin or in the digestive tract, and can cause some serious illness for any form of host it takes on!
A wealth of info, HERE > http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26354--,00.html
And Lord forbid .. be careful of your critters sneezing on/or toward you; especially children! Ex: Sheep Bot Fly > http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/botfly2.htm ..
Quoting:
Ophthalmomyiasis refers to the invasion of the lids, conjunctiva, cornea, and rarely the orbit or globe of the mammalian eye by fly larvae (order Diptera). The sheep nasal botfly (Oestrus ovis) is the most common cause of ophthalmomyiasis. The human botfly (D hominis) is the most common cause of cutaneous myiasis in Central and South America, but few cases of external ophthalmomyiasis and no previous case to our knowledge of orbital invasion have been reported.
The female botfly glues her eggs onto the abdomen of a captured mosquito or other common fly. When the carrier insect lands on a human, the larva, or bot, hatches, burrows into the skin, and positions itself "head down" to feed, breathing through caudal respiratory spiracles. A furuncle with a central pore develops as the bot matures, molting twice until reaching 18 to 24 mm. The larva withdraws through a central punctum, falling to the ground and pupating before emerging as a mature botfly. Chloroform or lidocaine to anesthetize the bot may facilitate surgical removal as does occluding the breathing hole with ointment, beeswax, chewing gum, or pork fat.
* NOT for the weak stomached!! > http://www.bright.net/~bryanvet/Cuterebra.htm
Needless to say .. my appetite has been suppressed! .. (blech!)
- Magpye
Gah! Gag!
Oh ick!
I hate flies, gnats and mosquitos more than everything! Said because it's the worst we have.
Well, I had to read this from the beginning too, and as it turned out, last night I read an advertisement for an herbal cleanse that gets parasites out - and you even see them in your excrement. People who had used it wrote descriptions....worms, inches long! hmmmm...'course I read the whole thing and studied the photos.
Several years ago one of my dogs had an oozing hole in her that she kept licking. Being one who is always ready to pop the biggest zit, I squeezed the sides of the hole, and out popped a maggot! I'd never seen such a thing, so I put it in a jar and took it to the vet. Some kind of fly. She got one more after that. Didn't seem to hurt her when I popped them out.
Guess with all the critters I get up close and personal to (dogs and a cat, mainly), I guess I'd better see about herbally cleansing out some of those parasites.
Amazing what ails the advertising article says they cause, and it makes sense. If they live in dogs and other critters, why not us?
:-)
Kinda makes me think of the scene in African Queen.
4paws, it used to be customary for folks to "deworm" themselves at least twice a year, usually with herbal mixtures. A friends DH says he remembers his mom giving them a mixture of castor oil and turpentine to take care of that. It is interesting that many folks in the "industrialized" world think parasites are something that only applies to non-human animals or 3rd world countries. Over 90% of Americans have parasites. There are so many ways to pick them up. You don't need to curtail your enjoyment of life, just debug yourself at least twice a year.
We do the whole family at once, including the cats & dogs, with the herbal mixtures from this site:
http://humaworm.com/index.html
They way I see it, better out than in.
Thanks for the link, garden_mermaid; I've been thinking about looking for some home remedies. :-)
garden_mermaid, Thanks for the site. This is gross! But I'm interested.
4Paws, I too get that advertisement and wonder.
The good thing about maggots is that they only eat the dead flesh, cleaning up a wound. I would have said eewww if I had had the nerve to squeeze in the first place! :))
Could a person eat the diatomaceous stuff they feed to chickens? Asked half seriously. There is a food grade.
I would think the DE (diatomacious earth) would be sharp in the system, but I don't know.
Gaby, my dog, didn't have a wound at all - that beastie was inside under her skin. No blood or anything came out with it, and it healed with no problems.
(long time no see, billy!)
Yes, I have been gone awhile, again. After I put x-mas away I tried to keep the house clean. Now I've been trying to research plants and get flower orders out. I sure missed it here tho!
I'm not so sure I would want to try the diatoms either.
I'm glad you got both of those out of Gaby before they caused any problems.
OM! This came up on one of my other forums in a discussion about parasites.... the guinea worm!!! Talk about disturbing!!!
yes...I think about this daily, now...lol
I'm sure I'm totally infested, given how close I am to my dogs!
NAH!
Nothing major like that that that....guinea worm!