Overview
A small family of botflies, represented in Australia by only three known species:
Oestrus ovis
L., the sheep nasal botfly;
Cephalopina titillator
(Clark), the camel botfly; and
Tracheomyia macropi
(Froggatt), the kangaroo botfly. Some doubt remains as to whether there is only the one species of
Tracheomyia
.
Larvae of the sheep botfly are deposited by the female near the nostrils, and develop in the nasal sinuses; sneezed out when mature, they pupate in the soil.
C. titillator
has a similar life cycle in feral camels, but little is known about
Tracheomyia
except that its larvae live in the tracheae of kangaroos.
Description
Oestrids resemble tachinids in the well-developed subscutellum, but the mouthparts are vestigial and vein M is directed forward to meet R4+5 well before the wing margin.
Distribution
Oestrus ovis
is common in flocks of sheep throughout Australia, while populations of red kangaroos and euros can be heavily infested by
Tracheomyia
. Little is known of
Cephalopina
.