James Johnson, age 10, of Spokane, Wash., for his question:
Where do maggots come from?
This pesky problem is a hazard to human health and happiness. The maggots that thrive in neglected trash piles and lidless garbage cans tend to spread germs. Other maggots appear mysteriously inside innocent looking apples and other foods. These greedy midgets ruin countless tons of our precious crops every year. We must rate most of the maggots among our enemies.
The wormy maggots come in assorted sizes and various colors and all of them are children of the teeming insect world. Their parents are winged insects, usually flies or beetles. These critters grow up through four stages, progressing from egg to larva to pupa to winged adult. The winged adult produces multitudes of eggs to start the next generation on its way.
We share our earth with thousands and thousands of different flies and beetles. And each different species has its own lifestyle, plus its own favorite food. Most of the feeding is done by the wormy maggots in the larva stage of life. Hence, the adult insect lays her eggs in or near a suitable food supply. There the famished maggots usually stuff themselves with enough food to last a lifetime. Then they turn into pupas, either encased in stiff chrysalises or wrapped in soft cocoons.
During the pupa stage, the grubby old maggot body is remodeled completely. The insect that emerges is a winged adult, ready to lay eggs for a new life cycle. We notice the winged adults and also the creepy crawly maggots. But usually the pupas are carefully concealed, and almost always the eggs are so tiny that we never find them unless we know just where to look.
In spring and summer, dozens of different flies and beetles, moths and butterflies hide their packages of eggs in our fields, gardens and orchards. The grubs from the eggs of several beetles tunnel into the bark of trees. Other beetle maggots tunnel into apples, plums or peaches where they feast on the fruit. The grubs of various flies attack wheat, soybeans and many other valuable crops. Some maggots even tunnel into the skins of cattle, creating itches and sores.
Our world is attacked by hundreds of destructive maggots and all of them hatch from the eggs of various insects. But the type we know best comes very close to home. This grubby pest is the maggot of the pesky housefly, who is known to spread germs. Her grubby maggots feed on decaying material, so she lays her eggs in rotting garbage. However, we can outsmart this pest by covering all the trash and keeping well fitting lids on our garbage cans.
The eggs that hatch into maggots are tiny, but they certainly come in enormous numbers. Most of the eggs, larvas and pupas are eaten by other creatures or die from various causes. But suppose they did not. In one summer, a pair of houseflies could produce 200 million million million maggots. That ghastly figure is 2 plus 20 zeros, which is 200 quintillion.