Nutrition
ADULT:
The adult Hypoderma bovis does not have functional
mouth parts. Therefore, it does not feed and will die
about 1 week after maturation and laying eggs (Haskell 2011).
LARVAE:
The larvae will attach itself to the tissue of its host with
their mouth-hooks.
They will be attached beneath the skin, and feed off of the free oxygen
supply through the tissues. This in turn makes the host oxygen
deficient. Then in early winter, the larvae arrive in the sub
dermal tissue surrounding the spinal cord. They then make
breathing holes through the skin to the outside world and the
"warbles" start to form from the larvae then the second and third
stages are completed in these cyst like sacs below the skin (Haskell
2011).