Meet Wilbur as he rests in my hand, all 6 ounces of him.
There is a long tradition at the shelter to give new litters connected names, This is the Charlotte's Web bunch and so Wilbur was named after "Wilbur the Pig".
Wilbur the Pig was sort of the main character in the book; Wilbur the Cat is the runt of the litter.
Wilbur is in the tender care of one of my daughters, the younger one. Both my daughters are VetTechs working at different animal shelters.
Here my daughter is feeding Wilber from a bottle because he is too young to eat solid food or lap from a bowl yet.
But he is very curious and alert, studying everything about him.
When you look Wilbur straight on you may notice his head looks a bit lopsided.
If you look behind his right ear, the one far left in the picture, you will see he has some holes in his head.
Don't worry, he was never abused by any humans. This time it was nature that was cruel.
Wilber had warbles.
These are warbles.
If you think they look like some of the grubs you dig up when planting a garden, you'd be right.
They are a form of grub called "wolves" or sometimes "Cattle Grubs".
They're the larvae of the Warble Fly.
The fly has several aliases: "Bomb Fly", "Heel Fly" and one that was used back in the day to describe certain types of annoying people, the "Gad Fly".
Back in the day the country was less urban and more rural. There were a lot of farms and farmers and this fly was especially a problem on cattle farms, so I guess that is how Gad Fly came to mean an annoying, provoking person.
The cattle one of these flies is the Hypodermia bovis. Bovis means cow, you know, bovine. Hypodermia? Well, think hypodermic needle, something that gets under your skin.
There are several Hypodermia beside the bovis. There is the tarandi (reindeer) and the lineatum (horse) for instance. But we think it was the bovis that was in Wilbur.
On the right is a squirrel that has fallen victim to a Hypodermia fly and now has warbles. They are the cylindric bulges with the small hole at the top across its body.
How does this all work? The pregnant fly lays her eggs on the legs or hide of an animal. The animal will lick the area and ingest the eggs.
The eggs will lay dormant inside the digestive track as the larvae develop and then when the baby flies have reached a certain stage they will burrow through the animal to just under the skin, thus hyperdermia.
Here they will remain until mature when they will puncture the skin and then fly away as flies ready to start the cycle over again.
Generally, they are not too great a danger to the animal, unless accidently crushed by pressure while embedded.
But do not fret and worry. Wilbur has had the nasty looking warbles removed and he is fine.
The holes in his head will heel and he is just your normal fun-loving little kitten now.
The only scary thing is the Warble Fly has been wiped out in most countries. It still exists in North Africa.
This begs the question how did warbles show up in a kitten in the USA?
Humans are not immune from becoming the fly's host.
Meanwhile, keep little Wilber in mind as the playful young thing he is and that he will eventually be adopted into a loving home.
Meanwhile he is in good hands. Not Allstate, but my daughter's.
