Mouse with grub

Question
Just read your article. We just found one in our kitchen. We live in southern Oregon. What is this? Its gross. We have it in a jar if anyone wants to see it. Thanks

Answer
Dear Arron,

I am assuming you mean you found a large brown grub which was near, or had dropped off of a mouse?

You have found the larva of a rodent botfly. These horrible creatures latch into mice even in infancy, and eat them inside until they are big enough to drop off, and, I suppose, turn into some horrid huge fly.  One person found one in a two week old infant pup-- the larva had to be almost two weeks old itself-- and the pup actually survived. But it must have been in terrible pain. There is a human bot fly and apparently it is incredibly painful.

If you keep it as a pet, let me know how it does ; )). You can eat it too; this is done in some parts of the world.

squeaks, n giggles,

Natasha


general botfly info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botfly

Tons of links about rodent bot flies:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/slansky/botfly/links/links1.htm