5Q4 THE ANIMAL PARASITES OF MAN 



native huts in the Congo region and is fairly common in central and northern parts 

 of Mozambique ; it is also recorded from the Zambesi River and the vicinity of 

 Barberton in the Eastern Transvaal (Bull. Ent. Res., 1912, iii, p. 216), in German 

 East Africa, in Nyasaland, and British East Africa. It is also recorded from 

 Bara, Kordofan, 1 where they occurred on the floor of the men's prison and bit the 

 prisoners. They were destroyed by sprinkling Jeyes' fluid on the floor. Neave 

 states (ibid., p. 310) that it occurs in the more neglected huts in native villages 

 throughout tropical Africa, and frequently enters a tent when pitched near a village. 

 It is also found in West Africa. The fly is thick-set and about the size and build of 

 a bluebottle fly; length 10 to 12 mm.; tawny in colour to dirty yellowish-brown, 

 with dusky hairs, giving it a smoky appearance ; the flattened thorax has long dark 

 stripes and the abdomen a dusky line in the centre of the second segment, which 

 meets a dark line on its posterior border ; the dusky third segment has a narrow 

 yellowish anterior line; the fourth segment is also dusky; legs buff with black hairs ; 

 the fifth tarsal segment black. The larvae are whitish, becoming reddish after a feast 

 of blood, with much wrinkled skin and rather flat and broad. They live in crevices 

 of the mud floor, under sleeping mats during the daytime, and come out at night and 

 suck the blood of sleepers and then retire to shelter again. Dutton, Todd, and 

 Christy noticed that where people slept on beds or platforms raised above the floor 

 the maggots were not so numerous as under the sleeping mats laid on the ground. 

 They turned up many of the maggots from a depth of three inches or more. 2 

 F. V. T.] 



Family. Oestridae. 



[The family of Oestridce or warble flies are all parasitic in their larval stage, 

 usually termed the "hot" stage. They are found as parasites in warm-blooded 

 animals, and man is frequently attacked by them. The members of this family have 

 the mouth rudimentary, many of them are hairy and bee-like, with large eyes and the 

 head large, the lower part more or less swollen. The thorax is large with a distinct 

 transverse suture, and the abdomen short and stumpy or very slightly elongated. 

 The male genitalia are hidden, whilst the female ovipositor is often elongated. The 

 wings may be transparent (Hypoderma) or mottled (Gastrophilus), and have muscid- 

 like venation ; the tegulae usually large, the legs moderately long. 



[As a rule each species is confined to a particular host, but as we see recorded 

 here those that attack animals may also attack man. The flies occur in warm weather 

 and usually during the warmest part of the day, and have a strong dislike to shade 

 and water. The genus Hypoderma attack oxen, sheep, goats, antelope and musk 

 deer ; Oestrus, sheep, antelope and horses ; Gastrophilus, the horse and ass ; 

 Cephenomyia, the deer ; Cepholomyia, the camel and buffalo ; Dermatobia, dogs, 

 cats, oxen, deer, apes and man ; Cuterebra and Rogenhofera, rodents and opossums- 



[Some live as parasites in the stomach and intestines (Gastrophilus) ; others 

 infest the skin (Hypoderma, Dermatobia and Oestromyia, the latter on Lagomys and 

 Hypodceus); (Edemagena tarandi also infests the skin of the reindeer in Siberia and 

 boreal America. Oestrus lives in the nasal sinus, and Cephalomyia in the throat as 

 well, Cuterebra and Rogenhofera, the skin or scrotum, so that we have really three 

 groups of parasitic oestride larvae : (i) cutaneous, (ii) intestinal, and (iii) facial. 



[No species seems confined to man, but the so-called "creeping disease," caused 

 by Hypodermae, and the attack of sheep nasal fly are comparatively common, as also 

 is the Dermatobia attack. F. V. T.~] . 



1 Balfour, Jonrn. Trap. Med. t 1909, xii, No. 4, p. 47. 

 Journ. Trap. Med., 1905, viii, No. 6, p. 90. 



