Observers Stunned To Learn Of Fly That Ate A Moose!
August 15, 2008
Can you believe that headline? It’s not a real story to report on but it is something that happens all the time, but one fly eating a moose?
Here’s as good a headline from the Scotsman: “Scientists Left Open-Mouthed After Shark Eats Polar Bear”. Picture that headline if you will. A massive polar bear out for a swim when caught unaware, a shark sneaks up from behind and tears off a hind quarter. Mayhem ensues! The ocean instantly fills with huge amounts of blood. A near feeding frenzy breaks out and soon one extremely hungry shark has devoured a massive polar bear.
Now picture if you will a tiny blow fly landing on the rear end of a bull moose and chews his way to the vital organs until it eventually kills the moose.
The problem here is neither of these scenarios actually took place. The shark and polar bear headline really did exist, not only in the Scotsman but in tons of media outlets worldwide. The headline of a fly eating a moose, exists only on this page……so far as I know.
Headlines sell and if you read the polar bear/shark story, you’ll discover that most everyone believes the shark stumbled upon a dead polar bear carcass and took a bite. Scientists discovered the bone from a polar bear in a shark’s stomach and several news sources thought a headline that claimed a shark beat up on a polar bear was better than reporting the probabilities of how the bone got into the sharks stomach.
In case you were wondering and if anyone asks, a fly did not kill and eat a bull moose, however, once those big ole boys go down, all kinds of creatures move in for a free meal, including the blow flies – you know the ones that lay eggs and produce maggots?
Go ahead and have some boiled rice for lunch.
Tom Remington
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Actually, this would not have surprised me about 50 years ago, when we had the “screw worm fly”. Of course, the moose would have had to migrated down to the southeast or southwest to have been susceptible to that fly, but they would do in a two ton bull on any day of the week.
That was back before your time, Tom, back when cattlemen lost huge numbers to that ole fly….and the government finally went about to exterminate them….They sterilized millions of flies, with radiation, and released them all over the south of the U.S. I suppose they flew down every section line, since they flew over my place and dropped little cardboard boxes, which opened when they hit the ground, releasing the flies…..As best I can remember, that was back in the late or mid 50’s…
Any animal that had a scratch on it was open ground for that fly…one fly laid enough eggs to kill a calf from the ambilical cord (which was an open wound) in a matter of days…and a full grown cow or bull would die from being eaten inside out in a matter of less than two weeks, if untreated! And a lot of cattle stayed in the scrubs through the year.
So, as unlike is it sounds today, fifty years ago, that would not have been an uncommon occurance…if you had a moose in Florida, anyway! (there have been buffalo and elk brought down….but I haven’t seen a moose down here, yet!
Maybe we should consider introducing the moose to Florida?
Surely you jest?!
By the way, Tom, we already have something bordering on the wolf down here in FL…don’t know if it’s a coy-dog or wolf-dog, but I’ve seen several when I’ve been hunting..Do you think that is enough genetic diversification for the judge? Or that just doesn’t count…..
First off, I jest!
Secondly, there probably are coy-dog/wolf-dogs running around in Florida and other states as well. Maine has had them for years, enough so that they are commonly referred to as a brush wolf.
Once domestic dogs breeding with the coyote has been proven as a biological fact as well we know that wolf hybrid dogs are “let go” all the time.
Mix and match and we got us a whole bunch of genetic diversification! The question is do we have genetic “exchange”!