botfly

Any member of several dipteran families with beelike adults and larvae that are parasitic on mammals. Some species are serious pests of horses, cattle, deer, sheep, rabbits, and squirrels, and one species (the human botfly) attacks humans. Adults of several species lay many eggs (nits) on the host's body, and the emerging larvae penetrate its skin. The larvae reemerge through the skin, then mature into egg-laying adults. In the New World tropics, the botfly's infestation of cattle has led to loss of beef and hides. Seealso warble fly.

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In people:

• Bernard Bot, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs

In places:

• Bot, Spain, municipality of the comarca of Terra Alta

In computers:

• Alienware Bot, line of budget desktop PCs manufactured by Alienware
• Bots (edi), open source EDI software
• BOTS, computer game
• Chatterbot, computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation with a human
• Desktop Bot, software that resides on a computer and indexes content for the purpose of searching, tagging, or distribution
• Internet bot, computer program which does automated tasks
• Botnet, network of "zombie" computers used to carry out automated tasks such as spamming
• Computer game bot, computer controlled player or opponent
• IRC bot, computer program connected to an Internet Relay Chat server as a normal user
• LlamaBot, a popular IRC bot written in mSL
• Infobot, an IRC bot designed to remember URL's
• Aimbot, a modification for a First-person shooter type game to provide assistance with aiming and shooting.

In acronyms:

• Air Botswana (ICAO code)
• Balance of Trade
• Bank of Tanzania, Tanzania's central bank
• Bank of Thailand, Thailand's central bank
• Bird of Time, R/C glider originally designed by Dave Thornburg and now sold as an ARF by Dynaflite
• Bloch oscillating transistor
• Body on tap
• BOT (holding), BOT Holding Bełchatów-Opole-Turów Górnictwo i Energetyka S.A.
• BOT GKS Bełchatów, Polish football club
• BOT Skra Bełchatów, Polish volleyball club
• British Overseas Territory
• Build-Operate-Transfer contracts
• Buoni ordinari del tesoro, a type of Italian government bond

In other uses:

• bot, blunt, insensitive; Dutch
• bot, colloquial term, typically used in the UK, short for "bottom", i.e., bum, ass etc.
• Boten Anna, hit song in Sweden in the middle of 2006 about an IRC bot
• The larva of the botfly
• Bots (band), Dutch language folk rock group
• Robot, mechanical device that can perform physical tasks