The tale of a bottle fly!

The tale of a bottle fly – Shakespeare connection? Importance in the field of forensic science?

Bottle fly is more amazing than you think, read on..

(Do zoom into this picture on a large screen and you would see tiny dots on and around the fly. You guessed it right, this image was made during a light drizzle.)

Bottle flies, also called blow flies, are common, large flies known for their metallic blue or green colour. The one you see here is a green bottle fly (correction in ID would be appreciated), found almost all across the globe. 

These tiny fellows are commonly known as blow flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, greenbottles, or cluster flies. They are a family of flies with 1,100 known species. A female bottle fly can lay upto 2000 eggs in it’s lifetime, crazy isn’t it? Bottle flies are also excellent pollinators.

The tale of a bottle fly

Some trivia from wikipedia – The name blow fly comes from an older English term for meat that had eggs laid on it, which was said to be fly blown. The first known association of the term “blow” with flies appears in the plays of William Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Tempest, and Antony and Cleopatra. Now you know the Shakespeare connection! 🙂

Bottle flies, specifically few species from this family are considered very important in the field of forensic science. The immature flies are used to estimate the minimum portion of the post-mortem interval, in a multitude of settings. Sources revealed, these are one of the first insects to arrive at a corpse.

They are also known to have medical and veterinary importance.

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