Bizarre as the title may seem, the photos are authentic. It was reported in an article entitled “Anterior Orbital Myiasis Caused by Human Botfly,” published in the July 2000 edition of the Archives of Ophthalmology, a journal of the American Medical Association.
What is Myiasis?
Myiasis is the medical term for a maggot (fly larva) infestation of a living body. In this case, the patient was a 5-year-old boy treated by U.S. Air Force surgeons in a rural area of the Republic of Honduras.
The patient had a worm in his eye, and the doctors removed it through a small incision on the surface of his eyeball. Apparently, the patient was none the worse for wear in the aftermath.
About Botflies and Blowflies
According to entomologists (scientists who study insects), the human botfly lays its eggs on the bodies of other insects (such as mosquitoes), which then transfer the eggs to animal or human hosts by direct contact. When a botfly egg hatches, the larva burrows into the host’s skin (or, in this case, eye) head-first and begins feeding.
This nasty creature is found mainly in Central and South America, but there are other species of flies known to be responsible for cases of myiasis in North America, mainly blowflies.
It is no urban legend, it happened truly, and there is a scientific report to back up the claim.
