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).

 

                                                             Home            Life Cycle and Reproduction