Texas Makes Zombie Fire Ants

eldavojohn writes "What do you do when a foreign species has been introduced to your land from another continent? Bring over the natural predator from the other continent. Scientists in Texas have introduced four kinds of phorid flies from South America to fight fire ants. These USDA approved flies dive bomb ants and lay an egg inside the ant. The maggot hatches and eats away juicy tender delicious ant brain until the ant is nothing more than a zombie that wanders around for two weeks before the head falls off and the ant dies. A couple of these flies will cause the ants to modify their behavior and this will be a very slow acting solution to curb the $1 billion in damage these ants do to Texas cattle ranches and — oddly enough — electrical equipment like circuit breakers. You may remember zombifying parasites hitting insects like cockroaches."

Comments

Re:What stupidity.

[canajin56]

The flies, which are USDA -approved, do not attack native ants or species and have been introduced in other Gulf Coast states, Plowes said.

If only Slashdot provided some way to get more details, so you could read more about the plan instead of just assuming they did no kind of study and are totally winging it with no thought or planning whatsoever.

"The flies do not attack native ants..."

[e9th]

When I got to New Mexico, I couldn't even look at huevos rancheros. Within a year, they had become a breakfast favorite.

The phorids will have whole generations to refine their taste.

Re:You may remember

[stonewallred]

From the South, I can only think of the lovely plant we brought over to help stop erosion, and how well the kudzu worked for us.