Syn.: Ochromyia anthropophaga, Grünberg, nec Blanch.; Cordylobia anthropophaga, Grünberg.
Endemic in German East Africa and neighbouring regions. Larva up to 14 mm. long, 4 to 5·5 mm. wide, of cylindrical shape, slightly narrowed behind, truncated, gradually tapering in front; antennæ-like processes, cone-shaped, blunt. Smaller cylindrical formations at the base of the mouth hooks surrounded by a circle of chitinous hooks. Body from the first segment covered with small brown squamous spines which are disposed in numerous irregular transverse rows. The spines are small over the two first segments, the two posterior thirds of all the segments, as well as from the eighth; over the third to the seventh they are larger, but between these there are very small spines. The breathing pores of the stigmata at the anterior end are kidney-shaped; the orifices are elongated and very tortuous, each divided into three. The larval period appears to last several weeks.
Cordylobia anthropophaga, Grünberg.
This well-known cutaneous African parasite seems to have been the cause of much confusion in regard to names. It belongs to the genus Cordylobia of Grünberg, and is one of the family Muscidæ, and differs from Auchmeromyia in that the second abdominal segment of the female is of normal size, whilst in Auchmeromyia it is more than half the length of the whole abdomen, and in the male the eyes are holoptic or close together, whilst in Auchmeromyia they are wide apart. The flies of this genus (three so far described) attack man in their larval stage (anyway two of the three), and also dogs and other animals, by burrowing into the skin and producing painful boils.
[C. anthropophaga, Grünberg, is widely distributed in Africa, extending from Senegal, where its maggot is known as the “ver de Cayor,” and is referred to on p. [590] as Ochromyia anthropophaga, E. Blanchard, to Natal, where it is known as the “Natal worm,” and referred to erroneously on p. [591] as Bengalia depressa, Walker.
[It is a thick-set Muscid of a general straw-yellow colour, with blackish markings on the dorsum of both thorax and abdomen, about 9·5 mm. long. The larva is fat and when mature about 12 mm. long, bluntly pointed in front, truncate behind; from the third to eleventh segments it is thickly covered with minute recurved spines of a brownish colour, arranged in transverse series of groups of two or more, which form more or less distinct irregular transverse rows. On each of the two posterior stigmatic plates, the respiratory slit on either side of the median one is characteristically curved, resembling an inverted note of interrogation. The puparium is brown to ferruginous or black and about 10 mm. long. The maggots are found in both natives and white men, and occur as a severe pest in dogs, also in monkeys, rats, and other mammals. In Sierra Leone it is called the “tumba fly.” The larvæ have been frequently found as true subcutaneous parasites, each larva living singly and forming a boil or warble in the skin, with an opening just as in an ox-warble, through which the maggot breathes and eventually escapes. Although they more usually occur as isolated specimens, Marshall found in Salisbury, South Rhodesia, that sixty were extracted from one lady, and Bérenger-Féraud, in Senegal, that more than 300 occurred in a single spaniel puppy.
[Neave (Bull. Ent. Res., 1912, iii, p. 217) records it from ulcers in a native at Lourenço Marques in 1908, and at the same time from ulcers in a dog, and that it is a severe pest to man in Mozambique and parts of the Transvaal. It seems to be more abundant in North Rhodesia and Nyasaland than to the north (Neave, Bull. Ent. Res., 1912, iii, p. 310). It is also recorded in Zanzibar, German East Africa, Uganda, East Tropical Africa (Neave).
[Simpson (Bull. Ent. Res., iii, p. 170) records a Muscid larva taken from the breast of a European in South Nigeria that was probably Cordylobia.
[It is not known how infection takes place. Neave (Bull. Ent. Res., iii, p. 310) says: “Many instances in human beings would preclude the possibility of eggs having been laid direct on the skin: in these cases they have probably been laid on the clothing put out to dry.”
[Gedoelst has described another species, C. rodhani, and Austen a third species, C. prægrandis, from Nyasaland, Cape Colony, Transvaal, Natal, North-west Rhodesia, and German East Africa.