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 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.”
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