The evolution of myiasis in humans and other animals in the Old and New Worlds (part I): phylogenetic analyses

Myiasis, the infestation of live vertebrates with dipterous larvae, seems to take two distinct forms that, it has been suggested, evolved from two distinct phylogenetic roots: saprophagous and sanguinivorous. However, the convergent evolution of morphological and life-history traits seems to have had a major role in simplifying this overall assessment of the evolutionary routes by which myiasis arose. Moreover, this somewhat simplistic division is further complicated by the existence of both ectoparasitic and endoparasitic species of myiasis-causing Diptera, the evolutionary affinities of which remain to be resolved. To understand how different forms of parasitism arose, the evolution of the various groups of myiasis-causing flies must be separated from the evolution of the myiasis habit per se. Until recently, evolutionary studies of myiasis-causing flies were little more than discussions of morphology-based taxonomy. Since the mid-1990s, however, several formal phylogenies – based on both morphological and, increasingly, molecular data – have been published, enabling reassessment of the hypotheses concerning myiasis evolution. In part I of this review, we focus on some recent landmark studies in this often-neglected branch of parasitology and draw together phylogenetic studies based on molecular and morphological data to provide a framework for the subsequent analysis of biochemical, immunological, behavioural, biogeographical and fossil evidence relating to the evolution of myiasis.