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Oestrus

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Name

Greek: oistros = penetrating fly.

Genus of the dipteran family Oestridae. Oestrus ovis, the so-called sheep-, nose-gadfly, is as adult fly about 10–12 mm long (Fig. 1). It is active in Europe from May to August. The adults do not feed; about 12–20 days after copulation the females start to deposit up to 500 larvae 1, which are placed bomb-like onto the nose/eyes of sheep, but also onto human eyes. The larvae develop inside the nose and later the larvae 3 drop to soil, where pupa-formation and maturation occur within 2–4 weeks; Diptera.

Oestrus, Fig. 1
figure 155 figure 155

Diagrammatic representation of an adult female of Oestrus ovis

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© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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(2016). Oestrus. In: Mehlhorn, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parasitology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43978-4_2194

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