While the wildlife department normally writes about one of our animal ambassadors, I felt compelled to write about one animal that presents numerous issues in the summer for us as animal keepers—the common housefly. In the summer heat, flies are everywhere—on leftover food, scat, water buckets and various other things that most animals and certainly humans would find disgusting. As a keeper, I come in contact with some pretty nasty stuff on a daily basis. It’s just part of the job and I really don’t mind it. I consider it a small price to pay for the privilege of sharing in the lives of the animals here at CNC. We often joke that we can deal with all kinds of dirty work, including stinky food, dirty water, mud, mosquitoes, bees, heat, cold and rain, but we have one nemesis that gets us every time and that is the larval stage of houseflies—maggots!

There is a purpose for all creatures, and here are some interesting benefits of maggots:

• Some types of maggots can be of great use to forensic scientists. By their stage of development, these maggots can be used to give an indication of the time elapsed since death, as well as the place the organism died. Maggot species can be identified using their DNA. At the height of the summer season, a generation of flies (egg to adult) may be produced in 12–14 days. It is important to note that the lack of maggot presence is also telling in an investigation. Some other families of Insecta, such as Histeridae, feed on maggots. Thus, the lack of maggots would increase the estimated time of death.
• Other types of maggots are bred commercially, as a popular bait in fishing and a food for carnivorous pets such as reptiles or birds.
• Maggots have been used in medicine to clean out necrotic wounds, and in food production, particularly of cheeses (casu marzu).

So there you have it! Even though they are pretty disgusting, maggots do have an important place in the web of life.

Looking forward to winter…