Where Do Maggots Come From? A Guide to the Origin and Habitat of the Maggot

There are few things more disturbing than opening an old bag of potatoes or your outside garbage bin only to find it crawling with horrible squirming maggots. In many cases it seems impossible for insects to have possibly infiltrated, as they were found in a closed container. And so you may ask yourself: "Where do Maggots come from?" In this article we will attempt to provide an answer and inform you of exactly where maggots come from.

Where Maggots come from: Maggots are immature fly larvae

Ultimately, asking "Where do Maggots come from?" is a bit like asking "Where do babies come from?" because that is precisely what maggots are: babies. Maggots are fly young that are in the first or second stage of their life cycle.

So when a mommy fly and a daddy fly love each other very much, they get together and hug in a very special way. Then the Mommy fly lays eggs (technically, where maggots come from could actually be defined as "eggs" rather than "flies", but we won't nitpick). These eggs hatch and tiny larvae (also known as "maggots") come out. These maggots eat and eat until the metamorphasize to become adult flies and to start the process all over again. So ultimately, the place where maggots come from are adult flies.

Where Maggots come from: How maggots get into your food and the rest of your stuff

Flies have an amazing talent for laying their eggs in annoying places. These include places where humans like to store their own food or the food of their pets, or even their own waste. Flies usually choose to lay their eggs in out of the way, soft, nutrient rich places, where they know that their young maggots will be safe and able to feed until they grow to adult hood.

Sometimes you will have a closed container of food or another soft nutrient rich substance (such as a garbage bin) only to open it later and find it full of maggots. Before you again ask yourself "Where do maggots come from?" realize that fly eggs are very, very small. If the food (or other nutrient rich substance) was left out in the open for any amount of time you run the risk of flies having laid eggs in or on it.

Where Maggots come from: How to keep maggots away

To avoid ever having to ask yourself where maggots come from and keeping maggots and flies in general out of your house you should never leave open containers of food around, take out the trash often and try to keep it as unsmelly as possible, and close all doors and windows to keep flies from getting in in the first place.