Botfly

Doctors thought the painful bumps on Aaron Dallas's head might have been gnat bites or shingles... until the bumps started to move. That was when they discovered five botfly larvae living in an 1/8 in wide (3 mm) pit near the top of his skull. The tiny parasites were probably placed there by a mosquito. "I could feel and hear them," said Dallas of Carbondale, Colorado. "I actually thought I was going crazy.

The botfly is a hairy fly, the larvae of which live as parasites within the bodies of mammals, especially horses. There are about 150 species worldwide, but only one-Dermatabia hominis-attacks humans. The female botfly often uses a mosquito to carry her eggs to the host body and when the mosquito bites, the eggs fall off. The heat of the host body induces the larvae to hatch and they then start burrowing into and eating off the flesh for up to eight weeks, before leaving to pupate into an adult fly. They will thrive in any warm part of the body- even in the throat and nose. Since the maggot has strong, hooked spines, it cannot be removed just by squeezing. The best method is either to use a venom extractor syringe or to cover the wound with Vaseline, forcing the maggot up in search of air, and then to pull it out with tweezers.