Warning: This video is not for the squeamish
When Harvard University entomologist Piotr Naskrecki was bitten by mosquitoes during a visit to Belize, he received more than an itchy patch of skin.
While sucking on his blood, the mosquitoes deposited botfly eggs.
"I realised that some of my mosquito bites were not really healing. I also noticed that something was living in them," Naskrecki says in the above video.
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The eggs soon hatched under the skin due to the heat of the human body.
Naskrecki removed a small botfly from under his skin using tweezers, but decided to leave the two remaining botflies buried under the surface because he had never had the opportunity to see an adult botfly up close.
"I also thought that being a male, this was my only chance to produce another living, breathing being out of my flesh and blood," he says.
It took two months for the larvae under Naskrecki's skin to reach the stage when they were ready to emerge without assistance.
He says the process took about 40 minutes, and was not particularly painful.
Even so, we'll be avoiding adult botflies at all costs.
