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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Bot fly larvae

Something I never wanted to know about, and almost wish I didn't!  Last night, we got home after it was a dark and a bunny was sitting in the road.  It didn't move, so we put it in a box and brought it in the house.  It seemed a bit stunned, maybe hurt, but we couldn't see any obvious injury.  Then we noticed a blackish round thing on it's shoulder.  We asked our hunter friend, Jim, and he said someone shot the bunny.  I told Alana the bunny could stay overnight, and we'd take it to the vet today.  This morning it seemed much better, and when we were cleaning up it's poop we found out why - the bot fly larvae that had been eating its way out of the bunny had finished!  GAG!!!  We killed the larvae and let the bunny go, though it's prognosis is not good - Wikipedia says that bot flies lay about 30 eggs, so that poor thing undoubtably has more of those digusting creatures incubating inside him. (I considered taking the rabbit to the vet, but this website says that these parasites are a natural phenomenon, and that it's often more stressful for wild animals to try to remove them - it's better to "let nature take its course." The site also says that animals often survive an infestation, so maybe Mr Rabbit will be ok.)  Thank goodness there is only one variety of this parasite that infests humans and it doesn't exist in North America.

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