Mobile Maggots and the Moving Corpse

You are one sick puppy! OK, only kidding. Well, maybe you are one sick puppy, but nothing you've said here leads me to think that.

An entomologist used to work for me (in a non-entomological function) and her boyfriend was an entomologists as well, working in forensics. He would be called in to determine time of death based on the bugs in the body. Not my cup of tea, but someone has to do it, I suppose.

Ants are the classic example of multiple autonomous yet interdependent organisms working together to achieve what certainly appears to us to be a goal (building the nest, feeding the queen, etc.) Can it possibly appear to them as a goal, too? Or are they simply following the dictates of their DNA, with no more thought involved than they had when they were splitting from one cell into two, and two into four?

I'd guess that with the corpse, the maggots would all move together in the same way that all the mice in a room run away when the lights go on. Seems less purposeful than the activities of ants, but I suppose nevertheless helps to ensure that the maggots end up as flies rather than a meal before reproducing.

Are we humans more purposeful, or are we simply doing those things that ensure our reproduction reflexively, and without real awareness of cause and effect?

Some of both. Desire and emotion are dictated by chemistry which is often emoted by genetics or learned patterns of which we are unaware. Yet we have minds and are at least partially successful at times in overriding the chemical based promptings. Goals and discipline are useful in this effort as there is usually a serious time delay in re-patterning our chemistry. Not an easy task, but with great effort, doable.

rcapper: What the ????

If it doesn't make sense don't worry about it, it's just an opinion. If you don't agree that's cool too. But unless you make a more articulate comment how will we ever know? If you are wondering where it fits in with maggots, I was responding to the last comment in the above post. Any questions or are you just heckling?

I was unable to find a reference to maggots causing an entire corpse to move, but neverthless found this site re Burying Beetles (which can cause a small corpse to move, prior to burying it). The Burying Beetles are nearly unique in the insect world, in that the parents actually watch after their young.

http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en507/papers_1997/walter.html

Sounds like a job for....Mythbusters!

Able to fire a speeding bullet. More powerful than a model locomotive. Able to leap tall tales in a single bound. Look! Up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. Oh, ...it's just the Mythbusters!

Yes, it's Mythbusters - Strange guys from another Planet (Hollywood), who came to the Discovery Channel with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Mythbusters - who can (seemingly) change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in their hydraulic press, and who, disguised as Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, mild-mannered special-effects experts, fight a neverending battle for Truth, Justice, and the Testing of Urban Legends!

Mr. Phister the bug man from BTVS season 2, apparently had some basis in reality or lore.