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Corpse-Eating Fly Returns From Extinction: Bone-Skippers Feast On Decayed Carcasses

Corpse-Eating Flies Are Back From The Dead
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Get your fly swatters out.

(Re)introducing, the bone-skipper -- a fly that lives to feast on decayed carcasses.

For centuries, the "mythical" corpse-eating species was thought to be extinct, but that's not the case, LiveScience reports.

Bone-skippers, which prefer to eat larger dead animals, including humans, were rediscovered in Europe in the past few years, according to a study published in the Journal of Insect Conservation.

Pierfilippo Cerretti, a researcher at the Sapienza University of Rome, told LiveScience that bone-skippers -- rediscovered in Europe in the past few years -- get their name because they habitually jump or skip along carcasses, making the bodies they eat appear "alive with larvae."

Cerretti and colleagues have most recently established a "type-species" for the fly, called Centrophlebomyia anthropophaga, according to their study published in ZooKeys in June.

H/T NBC News

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Before You Go

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