blowfly

English

A Calliphora livida fly specimen

blowfly (plural blowflies)

Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.
- 1907, Barbara Baynton, Sally Krimmer; Alan Lawson, editors, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 168:
  The blowfly was her next victim, but an unexciting one. Pulling off its legs, she placed it with the hornet, and both lay side by side unprotestingly.
- 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:
  What is a blow-fly? That is what I thought when I saw them: blow-flies. Is there something dead around here that has not yet begun to stink? I cannot discover where they are coming from; they just appear in the light of the lamp, attracted by the warmth, I suppose, and fly up against the bulb and then drop stunned on the table and flop about groggily until I sweep them away with my sleeve.

flies of the family Calliphoridae