How do flies/maggots spawn out of rotten or left over food

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Like, if you have a leftover piece of meat and just leave it in your house, sooner or later maggots/flies are going to be coming out of it even if there were no (visible) flies in the house previously.

Where do the original maggots even come from?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Maggots are the larvae of flies. For maggots to develop, a fly must lay fertilized eggs on the meat, and the eggs must hatch. This can happen at the meat shop or meat processing plant, before you buy the meat.

Cooking kills the eggs, bacteria, and other contaminants in the food. And refrigeration (the low temperatures) may prevent the eggs from hatching.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They come from flies that you just didn’t see, there was a famous experiment by Francesco Redi that proved that rotten meat in a sealed container did not generate maggots bc there was no way for a fly to enter