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Texas Makes Zombie Fire Ants

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-could-go-wrong dept.

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."

6 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What stupidity. by GaryOlson · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...accidentally introduced into the United States due to a South American cargo ship coming to an Alabama port in 1918, but now infests the majority of the Southern and Southwestern United States.

    Then we can stop introducing more foreign species from South America by stopping all shipping of bananas, cocoa, and coffee. Or better yet, stop shipping of any product which crosses any large natural border such as oceans.

    --
    Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
  2. Mod Parent Down if you are Jewish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    8==K=I=K=E==S=L=A=P==D ~~~-o_ (-: Your Big Nosed Sister)

  3. i just got off the toilet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    i shit out an obama.

    plop!

  4. Sounds like Micro$oft by cheap.computer · · Score: 0, Troll

    Introduce a bug to squash another bug!

    Windows7->WindowsVista->WindowsXP->Windows95...

  5. Re:Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You have a half green, half red "pilule" beside your name. You are a foe of a friend, spun. Fuck you and your parents.

  6. Re:What stupidity. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The 'I am not a biochemist' part of your statement was redundant. We could tell you aren't highly educated by your inability to correctly pluralize 'flies'.

    Your statement is expanded to, "people involved in the research of these fly is".

    Flies. apostrophe-s means possession or contraction of 'X is'. "ies" or "es" means plural.