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The name 'deer botfly' is used to refer to any species in the genus '''Cephenemyia''', within the family Oestridae. They are large flies, often very accurate mimics of bumblebees, and are internal parasites of deer.
It was reported for many years that ''Cephenemyia'' was the fastest of all flying insects, cited by the New York Times and Guinness Book of World Records as traveling at speeds of over 800 miles per hour. The source of this remarkable claim was an article by entomologist Charles H. T. Townsend in the 1927 ''Journal of the New York Entomological Society'', wherein Townsend claimed to have estimated a speed of 400 yards per second while observing botflies at 12,000 feet in New Mexico.
In 1938 Irving Langmuir, recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, examined the claim in detail and refuted the estimate. Among his specific criticisms were:

★ To maintain a velocity of 800 miles per hour, the 0.3-gram fly would have had to consume more than 150% of its body weight in food every second;

★ The fly would have produced an audible sonic boom;

★ The supersonic fly would have been invisible to the naked eye; and

★ The impact trauma of such a fly colliding with a human body would resemble that of a gunshot wound
Using the original report as a basis, Langmuir estimated the deer botfly's true speed at 25 miles per hour.
(Note that the gunshot wound would only resemble that from a small bullet.)