THE LARVA OF SARCOPHAGA, A PARASITE OF 



CISTUDO CAROLINA AND THE HISTOLOGY 



OF ITS RESPIRATORY APPARATI - 



\VM. A. KEPNER. 

 UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 



The ^tiulcnt of zoology is early impressed with the intcii-ive 

 ni.iniuT in which animal life has penetrated everv available 

 -pace. Even so remote and strange place as the poison ijand- 

 o| i In- rattle-snake have been entered, these glands furnishing 

 ample ] mil i -id and oxygen supply fora little nematode ih.it make- 

 i In in it- habitat. In the example of this Sarcophaga we find 

 a lly that lias entered the- nucha of the "box-turtle" a region 

 oi i he body where its larva will not be exposed to serious pre tire 

 bet \\een parts of the "turtle's" body and where it will al-o be five 

 from tin attacks of the appendages and mandibles of tin- ho-t. 

 The occurrence of this parasite in Cistndo was first ob-i\id 

 b\ I'ai kard ('82). Packard described and figured it as in u^'rid 

 larva. Tim-, so far as I have been able to determine, arose the 

 b.e-i- for believing that a "bot-fly" infested a reptile. Aldrich 

 in n terring to Packard's paper states that perhap- it is 

 not an o -trid. Shar[>e in the Cambridge Natural lli-tory says 

 that <1 -trididie may occur in the reptiles. Wheeler ('90 next 



>nU the occurrence of the- dipteron lar\^e on tin- nucha of 

 iirolina. He succeeded in getting the larvae to pupau- 

 and iii rearing imagines from the pupae. These adult Hie- proved 

 to belon- to the genus Sarcophaga and not to be cestrid llie-;. 

 Thn> there appears to remain no evidence of a " bot-fly " infesting 

 a ivpiile. 



In Octobi-r, H)io, a female specimen of Cistudo Carolina was 

 brought into my laboratory. It was kept through the winter 

 in a sink. January, 1911, a student called my attention to what 

 lu- called a "growth" in the nucha of the ri^ht >ide. This, h<>\\ - 

 ever, proved to be an insect larva. Two days later the lar\a 



iped from the perforation made in the skin of the host. 



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