Officinal Cantharide

The officinal cantharide , is a Coléoptère from 12 to 21 mm length, with the lengthened body, and of a color brilliant green.
On calls it also fly cantharide or Spanish fly or fly of Milan , although it is absolutely not a Mouche from a scientific point of view (Diptère).

Scientific classification

Officinal Cantharide, Lytta vesicatoria L. , order of the Coleopters, family of Meloïdes.

In spite of its name, it does not belong to the family of the Cantharide S and is not either a fly (order of the Diptère S). She is not especially in Spain nor with Milan, but it is an insect with the particular properties (see low).

Description, habitat and lifestyle

The officinal cantharide is noticed by its élytre S luisantes, generally sharp green with the mordorés or coppered reflections. Asian alternatives exist, drawing on red-coppered, certain subspecies presenting of the red bands more marked on the edge of the élytres. The body is lengthening-piece, the head is well separated, widened behind and the antennas are fine, longer in the male. The thorax is small and the end of the abdomen, slackness, exceeds élytres behind.

It has an extended geographical distribution, in Europe southernmost and central, in Asia, in moderate Africa and America or it was introduced. One finds it on the Frêne, the common lilac, the Troène, the Seringa or the Sureau whose adult devours the foliage in spring. It is not a common insect, but she lives rather in colony.

Its larval life is made in parasite solitary honeycombs. The female lays close to the nests and the larvae nourissent eggs and honey, pass by several evolutionary stages, of the larval state to the state nymphal from which the adults will leave who will nouriront themselves of sheets of trees. The important colonies can cause damage in the gardens.

Originality of the officinal cantharide

Lytta vesicatoria releases a rather unpleasant strong odor remotely, pointing out an odor of mouse and if that is not sufficient to discourage the predatory ones, it has a frightening weapon, the Cantharidine, substance very toxic, vesicatory, that it secretes by all the pores of its body. This violent poison causes burns on the skin and is very dangerous for the eyes. The cantharidin is still employed today in pharmacopeia like blistering plaster to look after many affections. At the 19th century, the harvest of the officinal cantharides was rather widespread and remunerative.

But another characteristic ensured the celebrity of the Spanish fly , it is the property Aphrodisiaque of cantharidin. Since antiquity, a powder made with the insect is recognized as being stimulative erection. This reputation is overrated but especially dangerous. The absorption of powder of cantharide causes an ignition of the urinary tracts. Erection, pathological, is a consequence among others: emissions of bloody urines, vomiting, abdominal pains. The surdose can be mortal (50 with 100mg are enough). According to the specialist Yves Cambefort " Its principal action is to irritate the urethra, which can indeed cause a strong erection and a swelling of the nipple, by an excitation reflex whose starting point is in the urinary mucous membranes enflammées." ( Scarab3ee and the Gods , Paris, 1994). One found in particular minor amounts of this powder in the " dragees of Hercule".

The cantharide is also one of the ingredients of the Ras el hanout, together from 30 to 50 spice S used in the Moroccan kitchen, in particular in the Tajine S.

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