Adjacent Words

botfly definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: stout-bodied hairy dipterous fly whose larvae are parasites on humans and other mammals

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1819 any of various stout dipteran flies (family Oestridae) with larvae parasitic in cavities or tissues of various mammals including humans

Britannica Concise

Any member of several dipteran families with beelike adults and larvae that are parasitic on mammals. Some species are serious pests of horses, cattle, deer, sheep, rabbits, and squirrels, and one species (the human botfly) attacks humans. Adults of several species lay many eggs (nits) on the host's body, and the emerging larvae penetrate its skin. The larvae reemerge through the skin, then mature into egg-laying adults. In the New World tropics, the botfly's infestation of cattle has led to loss of beef and hides. See also warble fly.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Botfly Bot"fly`, n. (Zo["o]l.) A dipterous insect of the family (Estrid[ae], of many different species, some of which are particularly troublesome to domestic animals, as the horse, ox, and sheep, on which they deposit their eggs. A common species is one of the botflies of the horse (Gastrophilus equi), the larv[ae] of which (bots) are taken into the stomach of the animal, where they live several months and pass through their larval states. In tropical America one species sometimes lives under the human skin, and another in the stomach. See Gadfly.