BS: Identification of insect larvae

Subject: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 01:21 AM

Yes, I know, this is nothing to do with anything here, but it's been bugging (ha!) me all night and now I'm a wreck. I have looked in my insect books, searched on various sites, Googled and even asked Jeeves. I got nearly 4 million hits and RSI but still I can't identify this larvae. There is bound to be someone here who can point me in the right direction.

It's a cream coloured, soft maggot, no legs, no visible features except a single stiffish brown 'tail' spike. The maggot is fat, about 1cm long (1/2 inch) and the 'tail' is about 2cm (1 inch) long. There are four and they were found in marshy peat soil, in a pot that formerly held hyacinth bulbs from Holland. The pot has been standing in water for several months, so the bulb peat is soggy and marshy. When taken out of the original pot and moved to another, they burrowed under the soil. There is a still pond a few feet away (no flowing water, but not stagnant)and I've not seen these things anywhere else in the garden. In fact, I've not seen anything like them before but I've never had a pond before either.

I know calling it a maggot is probably wrong, but it's the best description I could come up with other than haricot bean, because it's about the same dimensions.

What I need to know is, do I have a nice critter here, waiting to emerge like Venus from the depths, or is it some insect 'Alien' waiting to burst forth and eat all my daphnia?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 01:27 AM

put a jar over it and see what happens. When somebody bigger and new and unlike the larval stage turns up in there you'll have your answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:26 AM

If you have a University near you, take it to their 'bug' department (I forget the real name) and they will have an answer for you in a flash. Years back I saw a bug that I'd never encountered before. I don't know many of their names, just as I don't know what daphnias are (I'm guessing they are flowers). For simplicity's sake I call all flowers petunias. Anyway, when I returned to Alberta, I called the U of Alberta's bug department and described the insect to one of the people there. He told me to drop by. Next day I did. After giving him a fairly detailed description of the bug, he took me to some trays and pointed to a prong-horned beetle. That was the bug I'd seen in Quebec's Laurentians.

Hope that helps.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Gurney
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:49 AM

There is a fly maggot with a 'tail', but It's a long time since I was a freshwater angler, and I can't remember which it was. Some mad-keen anglers breed maggots for bait.

Stilly River Sage has the best solution.

The fact that it was in soil wouldn't worry me -apart from being thousands of miles away- because most maggots tunnel into soil to pupate. You may have caught it before it's little jacket grew.

Or it may be a case for Men In Black.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Oaklet
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:57 AM

The lava of the drone fly is called a rat-tailed maggot that pretty much matches your description except they are usually grey in colour. The "tail" is a breathing tube. Fry them in a mixture of butter and olive oil and serve hot.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 04:55 AM

The drone fly sounds close but does it matter that I'm in Britain?

I will now go and look up the Drone fly, to see if it's nice or not.

By the way, Brucie; Daphnia are also known as water fleas - you're thinking of dahlias which ARE flowers. Daphnia eat algae from the sides of ponds and tanks, and so are really useful for keeping the water clear.

I will give the Natural History Museum a ring and ask them (they weren't open yesterday). If they don't know the answer, no-one will!

Thanks.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Bagpuss
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 05:25 AM

Rat tailed maggots (hover fly larvae) have a long breathing tube, but dont know about the size or colour.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 05:40 AM

Well, so far the Drone fly is the closest contender, although there are some differences. At least they are nice and not stingers.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 09:32 AM

Here's a page from the UK. And here is a page from Ohio but if you drop down it has a very good diagram of what it sounds like you're describing.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 11:02 AM

Liz, I think it's the other one you mentioned.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Dave4Guild
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:04 PM

If it is a rat tailed maggot,and it sounds like it, it is of the genus Eristalis, which after pupation becomes a large hover fly of the bee mimic type.
They live as larvae in rich organic material including rotting corpses
and some think they are the origin of the Biblical story of "From the strong came forth sweetness".
The idea being that the flies from the corpse of a lion were mistaken for bees, which, of course make honey!

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:25 PM

Thank you Liz. I love flowers, but other than the edible plants for survival purposes, I am not up on their names, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 04:09 PM

Click here for an insect identification key. It is supposed to include larval forms. However, I have tried to use similar keys myself and have found them very frustrating. Unless you've had a lot of experience looking closely at various kinds of insect, you might find it hard to decide whether the mouth parts are tube-like or not, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 08:27 PM

Yes, the key was frustrating and didn't give me any more than I've already got.

I've decided that it's going to be hover fly because I've got about 8 of them sitting on my kitchen ceiling, waiting to burst out of their jackets - I found one on the floor today, a perfect outer shell.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions (except maybe the one about making them into a snack food..... euugh!!)

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: pdq
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 08:33 PM

brucie,

"I suspect that you had a 'long-horned beetle' not a 'prong-horned beetle' said Tom Swift sheepishly."

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 09:00 PM

Yeah, THAT was it. Thanks. Bugs, petunias, ya know? Yeah!

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 01:08 AM

Maggots back in medical fashion; August 3, 2004 - sydney morning herald

Think of these wriggly little creatures not as, well, gross, but as miniature surgeons: Maggots are making a medical comeback, cleaning out wounds that just won't heal. Wound-care clinics around the country are giving maggots a try on some of their sickest patients after high-tech treatments fail. It's a therapy quietly championed since the early 1990s by a California physician who's earned the nickname Dr Maggot. But Dr. Ronald Sherman's maggots are getting more attention since, in January, they became the first live animals to win US Food and Drug Administration approval - as a medical device to clean out wounds.

A medical device? They remove the dead tissue that impedes healing "mechanically," FDA determined. It's called chewing. But maggots do more than that, says Sherman, who raises the tiny, wormlike fly larvae in a laboratory at the University of California, Irvine. His research shows that in the mere two to three days they live in a wound, maggots also produce substances that kill bacteria and stimulate growth of healthy tissue.

Still, "it takes work to convince people" - including hospital administrators - that "maggots do work very well," said Dr. Robert Kirsner, who directs the University of Miami Cedars Wound Center. "They'll probably be easier to use now that they're FDA-approved, and we'll talk about it more and think about it more," Kirsner said. He estimates he uses maggots in about one in 50 patients where conventional therapy alone isn't enough.

This has been quite a year for wormlike critters. In June, FDA also gave its seal of approval to leeches, those bloodsuckers that help plastic surgeons save severed body parts by removing pooled blood and restoring circulation. And in the spring, University of Iowa researchers reported early evidence that drinking whipworm eggs, which causes a temporary, harmless infection, might soothe inflammatory bowel disease by diverting the overactive immune reaction that causes it.

There's a little more yuck factor with maggots. Most people know of them from TV crime dramas, where infestations of bodies help determine time of death. Actually, maggots' medicinal qualities have long been known. Civil War surgeons noted that soldiers whose wounds harboured maggots seemed to fare better. In the 1930s, a Johns Hopkins University surgeon's research sparked routine maggot therapy, until antibiotics came along a decade later. Maggot therapy is offered in around 50 hospitals throughout Britain for various conditions, ranging from burns, to aiding recovery after surgery. The most common uses, however, are for cleaning infected wounds, and for treating pressure sores.

Today, despite precise surgical techniques to cut out dying tissue, artificial skin and other high-tech treatments, hard-to-heal wounds remain a huge problem. Diabetic foot ulcers alone strike about 600,000 people annually and lead to thousands of amputations. It's not unusual to spend two years treating one, says Dr. David G Armstrong, a Chicago specialist who first tried maggot therapy in frustration about seven years ago and says he's now used it on several hundred patients. Drop maggots into the wound and cover with a special mesh to keep them in place. Two to three days later, after the maggots have eaten their fill, lift them off and dispose. Wound size determines how many maggots, and how many cycles of therapy, are needed. It typically costs a few hundred dollars, says Armstrong, of the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

© 2004 AP

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: open mike
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 01:49 AM

thanks freda for mentioning this...
i was too squeemish to bring this
information out into the light of day.
like leeches for blood-letting,
sometimes the squiggliest critters
have positive aspects!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1024_031024_maggotmedicine.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1219_wireleeches.html
http://www.galenpress.com/extras/extra31.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-07-07-leeches-maggots_x.htm
http://www.nih.gov/nihrecord/07_20_2004/story01.htm
sorry to take short cuts on the URL's
i figure others cat cut and paste if they want to check out the links
instead of me cutting and pasting Blickies...

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 10:14 AM

yeh, they are yukky, arent they open mike - but at least they have a use - (brucie's thread on good things to say about george bush is remarkably thing on suggestions of any redeeming attributes He may have!)

freda

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 11:28 AM

I posted an article on the same subject on the "I Read it in the Newspaper" thread. The discussion of the other critters being used in medicine is also very interesting. I wonder what anesthesia goes best with leeches, so the patient can resist slapping the things off after a minute or two? (Remember African Queen? I watched it with my kids, told them a gross section was coming up. They thought the leech special effects were pretty tame, until I pointed out that the leeches themselves weren't the gross part, it was that he had to get back into the water with them again. . .)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: semi-submersible
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 12:37 PM

I think leeches provide their own anaesthetic. And to control your reaction, you could emulate the patient who provided an attractive jar to house her leeches when they were off-duty, and gave them names.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: GUEST,underground maggots
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 04:43 PM

Holly smokes,, we went out and found these white maggot loooking type creatures coming out of the crackes in the driveway and garage. They are definetely coming from underground. I have no clue what they are?/? please help

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 05:10 PM

and where are YOU?...and how big are they?

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 07:11 PM

biggish sort of things? Sound like leatherjackets.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 09:40 PM

Or termites.....Liz, did you ever for real identify your bug? And, I don't care how good they are for me, ain't NOBODY putting maggots or leeches on me. They'd best have a heart failure machine on stand by! Phobic about things w/o shells....

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 11:09 PM

if you get a LOT of fairly small things popping out all at once, it indicates a swarming/migration where they head off to make more nests, and termites is a good guess....but.....

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 12:38 AM

This time of year there are lots of grubs in the soil, getting settled in for winter. I did some digging in the yard today and disturbed a bunch of them. Some were quite large (about the size and color of a cooked piece of elbow macaroni, the big kind that take about 11 minutes to cook). They have a brown head. Here's a photo. I see by the note on the page that they don't eat plants. I wonder what they become when they stop being grubs? I'll have to try my own experiment, as suggested above. I'm afraid I haven't been very charitable to these things when I come across them in the ground. I'll have to mend my ways.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: pdq
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 12:04 PM

SRS - The caption on your photo says "Good Grub one of the non-plant eaters". If that is true, what do they eat, minerals? People's fingers?

Actually, the photo is a Lepidoptera, probably a moth. And it obviously does eat plants. Roots maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Pied Piper
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 12:09 PM

I think you'll find that the lavae in question are from Hover flies.
PP

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Schantieman
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 09:38 AM

They sound like Eristalis to me - the 'rat'tailed maggot' mentioned above; hover fly larvae.

There has been, I'm glad to say, a population boom in hover flies this summer in the southern UK - although whether it reached LTS territory I don't know. They do nothing but good - the larvae of most species(but not this one, I fancy) eat the aphids that destroy your garden crops and the adults are pollinators. (They are black/yellow striped, like wasps & bees but do NOT sting - it's a type of mimicry which tends to stop them being eaten). Attract them to your garden with nectar-rich flowers like pot marigolds and chrysanthemums.

(The University department you want is probably that of entomology!)

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Identification of insect larvae
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 01:25 PM

Perhaps they don't eat to the point of damage? Or they eat other critters down there? I haven't given it a moment's thought, until now. They're in the turf, and if they want to eat the Bermuda, that's fine with me! (They're probably also in the garden, and are why the chard isn't looking so good right now).

SRS