Down here in Texas, we don’t take any crap from anybody or anything–especially not a bunch of uppity fire ants. So what do we do when billions of the little bastards attack Texas, damaging electrical equipment and cute little baby cows? If you said “import billions of assassin phorid flies from South America to eat the ants from the inside out and turn them into zombies” you are correct.
The flies “dive-bomb” the fire ants and lay eggs, and then the maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain. Later, the ant gets up and starts wandering for about two weeks, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.
Although the ant exhibits zombie-like behavior, Plowes said he “wouldn’t use the word ‘control’ to describe what is happening. There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly.”
About a month after the egg is laid, the ant’s head falls off and it dies — and the fly emerges ready to attack any foraging ants away from the mound and lay eggs.
Screw pesticides. When we want to kill something, we make sure it knows it deserves to die.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:19 am
FUN! But on this note: “Screw pesticides. When we want to kill something, we make sure it knows it deserves to die.” It’s too bad that brains don’t have nerves in them so the ants probably won’t feel the maggots eating it away from the inside.
May 13th, 2009 at 6:52 am
*sits and waits for the sequel, “Fire Ants 2: The Unintended Consequences”*
Mutant zombie hybrids, do you think, or just old-fashioned too late of a realization that the flies destroy a native species after all?
*eats popcorn*