the.com/blowfly
nature's first responder, arriving at a corpse before the smell does.
means A stout, often metallic-blue or green fly whose larvae feed on carrion and rotting flesh, making it one of the first insects to colonize a dead body.
from A plain English compound of "blow" and "fly." The "blow" is the old sense meaning to deposit eggs — when meat was "flyblown," it had been seeded with maggots. This use of "blow" reaches back through Old English and is a cousin of the same word for moving air, the idea being something puffed up or swollen, perhaps from the bloated state of egg-laden meat. So a blowfly is, quite literally, the fly that blows — that lays — its eggs in your dinner.
- forensic clock
- detectives age bodies by counting blowfly larvae
- taste test
- tastes food through receptors on its feet
- speed of death
- can detect a carcass within minutes
- shimmer armor
- metallic blue-green sheen warns of decay duty
- vomit eater
- liquefies meals by spitting digestive juices first
lucilia cuprina — australian sheep blowfly causing myiasis in livestock, costs wool industry ~$280 million annually
chrysomya bezziana — old world screwworm fly found across africa, middle east, and asia causing severe wound infections
calliphora vomitoria — bluebottle blowfly used in forensic entomology to estimate time of death in homicide investigations