Maggot

Maggot is the common name for the legless larval stage of flies (order Diptera), most familiarly the house fly (Musca domestica) but also blow flies, flesh flies, and many other species. Rather than a single kind of animal, "maggot" describes a body plan and life-stage shared by thousands of fly species worldwide, each adapted to a particular decaying or moist food source.

Maggots are built for rapid feeding and growth rather than mobility or defense. Their smooth, cylindrical, tapered bodies lack legs, wings, or a hardened head capsule, allowing them to burrow easily through soft, decomposing material. They breathe through spiracles located at the blunt rear end of the body, which is often held near the surface of whatever substrate they are feeding in.

Ecologically, maggots are important decomposers, accelerating the breakdown of carrion, dung, and rotting plant material and recycling nutrients back into the soil. They are also a significant food source for birds, other insects, and small animals, and different fly species' maggots are used by forensic entomologists to help estimate time of decomposition.

• Soft, whitish to cream-colored, legless body, narrower and pointed at the head end, blunt at the rear
• No visible head capsule; the mouth consists of small dark hooks used for feeding
• Length ranges roughly 3-12 mm depending on species and age, growing rapidly through several molts
• Moves by contracting and extending its body rather than walking
• Often found in clusters within rotting food, garbage, dung, or carrion
• Lookalikes: beetle grubs (which usually have visible legs and a distinct head capsule) and mealworms (segmented, harder-bodied, tan-colored)

Maggots occur wherever adult flies lay eggs on suitable decaying material: garbage cans, compost piles, manure, carrion, spoiled food, and damp organic debris. They are found on every continent except Antarctica and are especially abundant in warm, humid conditions that speed decomposition. Indoors, they commonly appear in trash bins or around improperly stored food; outdoors, they turn up in compost heaps, animal pens, and around dead animals.

Maggots feed continuously, using hooked mouthparts to rasp and liquefy organic material, which they then ingest. They favor moist, warm, oxygen-poor environments and will burrow away from light and dry conditions. As decomposers, they play a key ecological role in breaking down dead organic matter, and their feeding activity helps return nutrients to the soil food web. Many species also serve as prey for birds, predatory insects, and other scavengers.

Adult female flies lay clusters of tiny white eggs directly on or near a suitable food source. Eggs hatch within a day or two into first-instar maggots, which molt through two more larval stages over roughly 4-10 days, growing quickly as they feed. When fully grown, the maggot leaves the food source, its body shortens and hardens into a brown pupal case (puparium), inside which it undergoes complete metamorphosis. After several days to two weeks, depending on temperature and species, an adult fly emerges. Many fly species can complete several generations per year in warm climates, and development slows or pauses during cold weather.