Find the word definition

Wiktionary
screwworm

n. The larva of the fly (taxlink Cochliomyia hominivorax species noshow=1) (New World screwworm) or (taxlink Chrysomya bezziana species noshow=1) (Old World screwworm). The larva can be parasite in humans and animals and are distinctive in eating living flesh of mammals unlike most maggots which eat only dead flesh.

Usage examples of "screwworm".

New World primary screwworm, was classified in 1859 by a French doctor on a South American island.

Left unconscious and with a fractured ankle, he was beset by the primary screwworm blowflies.

A ratty old sign in front of nowhere announces that we have reached the Belize Country Club, another urges us to check our animals to keep Belize screwworm free.

At the US Department of Agriculture a technique was devised by which male screwworm flies were raised in captivity, exposed to cobalt-60 radiation, and dropped by aeroplane over the island of Curagao and screwworm-infested areas in Florida.

So successful was this programine that it is still carried out in Texas, where, during the screwworm mating season, the USDA raises and releases 150 million sterilized males a week.

There was a fly that laid its eggs in open lesions on the hides of cattle, and the resulting larvae, the screwworm, was a serious problem, capable of wiping out the cattle population in an infested area.

The sole occupation of these larvae, or maggots, or screwworms, is eating, ravenous eating.

The slave seed had sprouted in seconds, filaments wriggling like screwworms into his celiac plexus.

The prospect of baconless travel bored into Finch's mind like a screwworm, so painfully that he was moved to make a comment.

A good horse will smell screwworms when a man can’t see the steer for the brush, and he will locate cattle where a man can’t see them.

A good horse will smell screwworms when a man can't see the steer for the brush, and he will locate cattle where a man can't see them.