calliphora

Updated: August 16, 2026

Let not these expressions, however accurate, mislead us into believing for a moment that the Sarcophagae are the bold company of master tainters who haunt our dwellings, more particularly in autumn, and plant their vermin in our ill-guarded viands. The author of those offences is Calliphora vomitoria, the bluebottle, who is of a stouter build and arrayed in darkest blue.

Jean-Henri Fabre - The Life of the fly; with which are interspersed some chapters of autobiography