ARS TECHNICA – Texas is gearing up for war as a savage, flesh-eating fly appears poised for a US invasion and is expanding its range of victims.
On Friday, the Texas Department of Agriculture announced the debut of TDA Swormlure, a synthetic bait designed to attract the flies with a scent that mimics open flesh wounds, which are critical to the lifecycle of the fly, called the New World Screwworm.
The parasite exploits any open wound or orifice on a wide range of warm-blooded animals to feed its ravenous spawn. Female flies lay hundreds of eggs in even the tiniest abrasion.
From there, screw-shaped larvae—which give the flies their name—emerge to literally twist and bore into their victim, eating them alive and causing a putrid, life-threatening lesion. (You can see a graphic example here on a deer.)
The new lure for the flies is just one of several defense efforts in Texas, which stands to suffer heavy livestock losses from an invasion. Screwworms are a ferocious foe to many animals, but are particularly devastating to farm animals.
“When it comes to safeguarding Texas’ $15 billion cattle industry, we need to focus on action rather than words. That’s why I instructed my Biosecurity team to develop an effective screwworm lure,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in the announcement.
But cattle industry losses aren’t the only grave risk from the vicious parasites.
In Colombia, endemic screwworms have apparently grown bolder in their taste for flesh.
This week, biologists and researchers reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that the worms caused life-threatening infections in two wild mountain tapirs, an endangered species that lives in a protected area of the Central Andes …
