The medical entomology of Salonica /by Andrew Balfour.

  • Andrew Balfour
Date:
[1916?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical entomology of Salonica /by Andrew Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    S. calcitrans has black spots on its abdomen which readily serve to distinguish it from Musca domestica. ‘The species I have taken here—really a Lyperosia belonging to the same Family as the Stomoxide—is much smaller and _ its abdomen is not spotted. ‘The eggs, about 60 to the batch, are like those of the house fly, and the larve live on horse Mmanitemem | Desai ents Ot attracted by food, so that as a rule this insect is not a danger to man. Unhappily, the same cannot be said j about the alert, grey-coloured flies of Fig. 11—Stomoxys calcitrans different sizes, and some quite large, ara ta ie? Paes which feed on decomposing matter and other filth and bear the ominous name of the carcase flies. These are the Sarcophagide (Fig. 12), and I removed a small one from a marmalade pot on the Braemar Castle the day I arrived in Salonica. They are very common ; here, and you will SZ Oftensce, them sunning themselves on patches of hot sand or earth. They ' havercheckered Fig. 12—Sarcophaga sp. abdomens of black Cae tore Wea: and white and reddish heads, and either lay cigar-shaped eggs like those of Lucilia and Calliphora or extrude living larve. ‘The latter are furnished with powerful claws and, as you know, have often been found in wounds during this war. ‘They can tear and consume all animal tissues, including even soft bone, and have been known to burrow deeply and to cause death. Hence, carcase flies are to be dreaded both in the larval and the adult stage. As we have considered a fly which gives birth to living larvae, we may as well speak of another which does the same, though the larva turns so quickly into a pupa that the group to which the fly belongs, which includes the dreaded tsetse of Africa, is termed the Pupipara. ‘The representative of this family, which is common in the Salonica area, is a veterinary unit, a Hippobosca or tick fly, for it is
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