Fact check: Video shows actual fly, not a US military drone

Dezimey Kum, USA TODAY

July 28, 2022 at 5:52 PM·3 min read

The claim: Video shows a ‘polymer drone fly’ used by the US military

A video of a flying insect has been misconstrued by social media users as a military drone.

"Polymer drone flies, used by the U.S. military," reads the text in a June 13 Facebook post. The post garnered more than 12,000 interactions and 97,000 shares within four days.

But the footage does not show a drone.

The video shows a type of botfly, Cuterebra ruficus, experts told USA TODAY. The military is developing insect-sized drones, but they're not pictured in this Facebook post.

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USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the claim for comment.

Video shows real insect

The fly in the video is a rodent bot fly, which has parasitic larvae that live in animals, said Geoffrey Attardo, an entomology professor at the University of California, Davis.

The size and appearance of the botfly held in the video are consistent with properly identified pictures of the fly shared online. Bot flies are a family of Cuterebridae. They are common in parts of the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Erin Kolsi, an entomologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, also confirmed the fly in the Facebook post is a rodent bot fly.

Experts say the military has developed insect-sized drones, but they don't move in a way that would be as insect-like as the video shows.

Tabatha Thompson, a spokesperson for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said the agency has created mechanical drones for the military, but it has not developed any drones that are insect-like.

The military uses Teledyne FLIR's Black Hornet drone, which weighs about an ounce and is less than 7 inches long. The drone flies by using rotors that resemble helicopter blades.

NPR also reported in 2021 on a drone the size of a dragonfly that weighs just 0.02 ounces and moves with flapping wings, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Fact check: Clip of plane crashing is from a video game

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE a video that shows a "polymer drone fly" used by the U.S. military. Multiple experts confirm the video shows a botfly.

Our fact-checking sources:

PolitiFact, July 6, Facebook video shows an actual fly, not a ‘polymer drone’
Bug Guide, March 22, 2016, Species Cuterebra ruficrus
Military TV, Feb. 5, What can a Black Hornet drone do?
University of New Hampshire, accessed July 6, Bot Flies [fact sheet]
Teledyne FLIR, accessed July 5, Black Hornet® PRS
iNaturalist, Sept. 21, 2019, Photo 52062289, (c) Crowdy Pollock
NPR, March 4, 2021, Don't Swat This Bug. It Might Be A Robot On A Rescue Mission
Instagram, accessed July 6, caterpillarofsociety
Lead stories, June 29, Fact Check: This Is NOT Example Of US Military Drone That Looks Like Fly
Erin Kolsi, July 13, email exchange with USA TODAY
Geoffrey Attardo, July 13, email exchange with USA TODAY
Bryan Ripple, July 14, email exchange with USA TODAY
Colorado State University, Feb. 1, 2010, Rodents and Rabbit Bot Flies
DVIDS, June 15, 2021, New patent license agreement revalues worth of the two birds in the bush
The Air Force Research Laboratory, accessed July 14, Homepage
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, accessed July 25, About DARPA
Tabatha Thompson, July 25, email exchange with USA TODAY

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Video shows an actual fly, not a US military drone

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The claim: Video shows a ‘polymer drone fly’ used by the US military

Video shows real insect

Our rating: False

Our fact-checking sources:

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