If Only They Knew
I was recently invited to speak at a science fiction convention in Gulfport, Mississippi. While there, a group of new friends invited me to have dinner with them in a restaurant that was located in the hotel. The name of the restaurant was The Blowfly Inn. Now, considering the work I do in funeral service and crime scene investigations, I didn’t find that name to be conducive to nurturing an appetite. Even worse, when the server came to the table with our food, each plate had a plastic blowfly perched on one of the side dishes. Mine sat atop the fries. Now don’t get me wrong, the food was great, but that name needed major work. Whew, if they only knew…
Blowflies have an extraordinary sense of smell. They locate a dead body within minutes and exploit their biological niche: reducing a carcass to a skeleton.
They will wriggle through ripped screens, cracks in houses, or doors that don't close snugly in their search for food. Once blowflies locate a body, they land and immediately lay eggs. A female blowfly lays up to 300 eggs at one time, and with numerous females visiting a corpse, the number of larvae (maggots) can be immense. The larvae hatch within a day, ready to go to work. Their front ends are armed with mouth hooks which they rake through decaying flesh. Their rear ends consist of a chamber, in which their anus and posterior spiracles are located. (They also have anterior spiracles). Spiracles are used for breathing, and the possession of spiracles in a posterior location means maggots can breath-feed 24 hours a day. Between their heads and tails is a muscular, segmented body, a simple intestine and a pair of very large salivary glands. They wriggle easily through a corpse, secreting digestive enzymes and spreading putrefying bacteria which help create their soupy environment. In warm weather, they can consume 60 percent of a human body in less than a week.
After six days, the maggots crawl away to a dry place and turn into pupae. The pupae’s outer skin hardens to form a protective casing -- like a caterpillar creates a cocoon before emerging as a butterfly or moth. The full cycle from egg to adult takes about 11 to 14 days -- quicker in high temperatures, slower when it's cooler—and it’s that consistent cycle that makes them invaluable to crime scene investigators.
But to name a restaurant after them?
Uh, I don’t think so.
Blowflies have an extraordinary sense of smell. They locate a dead body within minutes and exploit their biological niche: reducing a carcass to a skeleton.
They will wriggle through ripped screens, cracks in houses, or doors that don't close snugly in their search for food. Once blowflies locate a body, they land and immediately lay eggs. A female blowfly lays up to 300 eggs at one time, and with numerous females visiting a corpse, the number of larvae (maggots) can be immense. The larvae hatch within a day, ready to go to work. Their front ends are armed with mouth hooks which they rake through decaying flesh. Their rear ends consist of a chamber, in which their anus and posterior spiracles are located. (They also have anterior spiracles). Spiracles are used for breathing, and the possession of spiracles in a posterior location means maggots can breath-feed 24 hours a day. Between their heads and tails is a muscular, segmented body, a simple intestine and a pair of very large salivary glands. They wriggle easily through a corpse, secreting digestive enzymes and spreading putrefying bacteria which help create their soupy environment. In warm weather, they can consume 60 percent of a human body in less than a week.
After six days, the maggots crawl away to a dry place and turn into pupae. The pupae’s outer skin hardens to form a protective casing -- like a caterpillar creates a cocoon before emerging as a butterfly or moth. The full cycle from egg to adult takes about 11 to 14 days -- quicker in high temperatures, slower when it's cooler—and it’s that consistent cycle that makes them invaluable to crime scene investigators.
But to name a restaurant after them?
Uh, I don’t think so.
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