I watched a you tube vidio of bote fly maggots burrowing into live animals skin. If a maggot were to evolve that invaded the entire body of the animal it seems that it could quickly wipe out life on an entire continent and then die out and dissappear.
Is there any evidence that this or something similar may have ever happened throughout the course of history. Possibly natural barriers like oceans, mountains or deserts may be able to confine it to some degree.
It’s not completely unknown, as with the screw-worm. The thing is myiasis is usually not so impossible to deal with - even nasties like the screw-worm aren’t generally burrowing straight into your heart or brain. Not to mention that most have a suite of specific or semi-specfic hosts.
Heck humans have had a specific pest of that sort for who knows how long. I’ve known three people that have had them - no big deal, really.
Thats just my point, host specific pests or pests that are not as prolific as flys could co-exist in an enviroment without wiping out an entire ecosystem. Where flys tend not to be specific and can lay thousands of eggs in a very short time. This would obviously work against them long term in that they would kill of their own food supply but short term it seems like it could be disastrous.
I don’t know about maggots, but in my lifetime, the American chestnut and the elm have essentially disappeared and the ash seems poised to follow. Imagine a disease as virulent as AIDS but that spreads as readily as the common cold. Who is to say it cannot happen?
We seem to be missing the concept of time.
By the time such a species could develop, its hosts just might evolve ways to interrupt its live cycle.
If OP is referencing the bot fly extraction video(s) posted recently, notice the “highly evolved” technique used to destroy them - opposable thumb (for those not wanting to look - the flesh around the infestation is squeezed, forcing the larvae out).
As to a maggot which will wipe out humanity: In a
“Human vs Fly”
fight, my money’s going to be on “Human”.
Hate to be “that guy,” but the plural of “fly” is “flies”.