![]() ![]() All members of the fly superfamily Hippoboscoidea, which includes bat flies, tsetse flies and louse flies, give birth to live young. While giving birth to live young may be something that is typically associated with mammals, a number of other animals also do so, including some reptiles and sharks. Thus, there is no need for producing a very large number of larvae.' 'Because this happens right inside a bat colony, the adult fly that the larva will eventually turn into is almost certain to find a host. Once it is deposited the female bat fly hurries back to the safety of her host. The adult fly leaves her host to find a suitable site near the bat roost, such as a cave wall or tree branch, to give birth to the larva just before it's ready to pupate. A single egg hatches inside the female fly's body, and the larva feeds, grows and moults, all while being nourished via a milk gland. While they don't produce many in comparison to other flies, bat flies can produce multiple young in their lifetime but invest in just one at a time. 'While most flies lay hundreds or thousands of eggs, hoping that at least one will survive, bat flies give live birth to a single, fully developed larva,' explains Piotr. The only time a bat fly intentionally leaves its host is to give birth. They really need to hang on tight,' says Erica. For some, if they fell off a bat mid-flight, that's them basically ruined. 'They've got really amazing claws to cling onto the fur of the bats. ![]() Instead, they may find their way about using their sense of smell and with the hairs (setae) covering their bodies, which may allow them to sense air currents and vibrations.Įven so, the bat flies' ability to hold on tight to their host is critical, as they can't survive long without access to blood. But they have become these hardened warriors,' Dr Erica McAlister, Senior Curator of Diptera at the Museum, explained in a livestream.īat flies can also either lack eyes or have vision that only enables them to sense light. 'A lot of these sibling species have lost their wings, they've lost their halteres – they've lost what it means to be a fly. There are some species that retain theirs, however, they don't have great aerial agility and rely on their bat hosts for most of their air travel. Other bat flies have wings but shed them when they find a host. 'In the case of the bat fly, its body has been modified by natural selection to resemble a hard-bodied spider, capable of running very fast on the fur of its bat host.'Ī parasitic lifestyle has caused some bat fly species to permanently lose their wings through evolution. 'Their bodies are exquisitely adapted to life on their hosts, often becoming dramatically different from their nearest free-living relatives. 'I find parasites immensely fascinating,' says Piotr. It is likely that as mammals evolved, flies began to associate with this new niche, co-evolving over millennia and ultimately leading to parasitic bat flies. True flies, a group also known as Diptera, are thought to have originated around 260 million years ago, long before the first bats. On entering this image, he says, 'I thought that it was the perfect combination of a visually interesting scene and an interesting biological relationship between the two organisms.' Flying without wings Piotr's image, Big Bat Bloodsucker, was awarded Highly Commended in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. 'Since bats' main mode of gathering information about their surroundings is echolocation rather than vision, it is not critical for the bat to have its eyes unobscured, which may explain why the bat did not attempt to remove the parasite.' This bat, however, didn't seem particularly perturbed by the parasite's decision to cling to its face instead. ![]() The flies move around on their host but usually nestle into the fur on the lower back. Maybe years of experiencing these flies has taught them that they have no chance of removing them, so they have just learned to live with them,' Piotr suggested in a Nature Live Online livestream. 'Bats can reach any point on their body quite easily and are very fast but I have never seen them try to get rid of a bat fly. The individual in Piotr's image is a member of the latter group and assigned to the genus Penicillidia.īats are incredibly dextrous so you might think that they would choose to rid themselves of the hitchhiking flies. The insects belong to two families – Streblidae and Nycteribiidae. ![]() Some occur on multiple species of bat, whereas others are much more host specific. There are hundreds of species of bat fly. Bat flies are external parasites that spend almost their entire lives on bats, feeding on their blood. ![]()
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