These ‘lips’ help a bloodsucking fly to gorge itself on blood from cattle.
The prizewinning electron micrograph, taken by Frank Page of the University
of Loughborough, shows the tip of the fly’s proboscis. ‘The fly lands on
cattle and creates a wound with those teeth (near the base of the picture),’
explains Malcolm Greenwood of the university’s geography department. ‘Blood
wells up in the groove and it acts like a sponge, drawing blood up into
the many channels that drain off into the proboscis.’ Vets are interested
in the flies because they spread mastitis.
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