Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: oakranger on May 12, 2009, 04:46:04 PM
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:rofl, this is too good.
It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it's all too real.
Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.
Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.
The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service say making "zombies" out of fire ants is a good thing.
"It's a tool — they're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig , an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton , in East Texas .
The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.
So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas .
The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs. The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior.
"At some point, the ant gets up and starts wandering," said Rob Plowes, a research associate at UT.
The maggot eventually migrates into the ant's head, but 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. This wandering stage goes on for about two weeks."
About a month after the egg is laid, the ant's head falls off and the fly emerges ready to attack any foraging ants away from the mound and lay eggs.
Plowes said fire ants are "very aware" of these tiny flies, and it only takes a few to cause the ants to modify their behavior.
"Just one or two flies can control movement or above-ground activity," Plowes said. "It's kind of like a medieval activity where you're putting a castle under siege."
Researchers began introducing phorid species in Texas in 1999. The first species has traveled all the way from Central and South Texas to the Oklahoma border. This year, UT researchers will add colonies south of the Metroplex at farms and ranches from Stephenville to Overton . It is the fourth species introduced in Texas .
Fire ants cost the Texas economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves.
Determining whether the phorid flies will work in Texas will take time, perhaps as long as a decade.
"These are very slow acting," Plowes said. "It's more like a cumulative impact measured across a time frame of years. It's not an immediate silver bullet impact."
The flies, which are USDA -approved, do not attack native ants or species and have been introduced in other Gulf Coast states, Plowes said. Despite initial concerns, farmers and ranchers have been willing to let researchers use their property to establish colonies. At the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in Fort Worth in March, Plowes said they found plenty of volunteers.
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I watched a documentary on the pilot program quite awhile ago (discovery science I think). I guess it was interesting enough that I didn't fall asleep or change the channel.
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T'is well out of order.
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... This wandering stage goes on for about two weeks...
This 'two weeks' period, like Pi, the golden ratio or 42, definitely seems to be hardcoded in the universe!
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I await word that Texas has a phorid fly problem.
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Hey guys..... we tried that:
(http://www.npsp.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/images/cane_toad.jpg)
It didn't work so well.
(http://www.ozanimals.com/image/albums/australia/Frog/F0020-002.jpg)
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Okay so whats stoping someone from bio engineering these flys to attack humans and such?
"Attack of the two week headless zombies!" :aok
And i say that jokeingly but,com'on..brain eating worm, how great can this frakkin' be? :|
Ill say it again..brain eating worm
K.
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(http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/5/13/128866900295576295.jpg)
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WHY IS IT that i imagine something like this going terribly wrong?
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WHY IS IT that i imagine something like this going terribly wrong?
Uhhh.... because it always does?
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Okay so whats stoping someone from bio engineering these flys to attack humans and such?
"Attack of the two week headless zombies!" :aok
And i say that jokeingly but,com'on..brain eating worm, how great can this frakkin' be? :|
Ill say it again..brain eating worm
K.
Its Texas. The issue is moot. :P
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We've learned a lot since the half-brained introduction of the nocturnal Cain Toad to control diurnal pests. Still, introducing one invasive species to control another deserves a lot of study and careful consideration.
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I think it's time to move.
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I think it's time to move.
i think it's time to lock the people that think of this poop in a room with these things, for a little while, and see that they truly don't go for humans.
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Okay so whats stoping someone from bio engineering these flys to attack humans and such?
Would be pointless, they are in America, they would starve to death. ;) :D
Its Texas. The issue is moot. :P
Doh! You kinda beat me to it :(
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Remember the lovebug! It used to be confined to central american until soil samples and some plants were brought to Texas were they became very 'popular' and then sod carried to other states so much that we get to the point we are today where the lovebug is everywhere in the south.
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Oh, that has disaster written all over it. Here in Wisconsin, the DNR or Dept of Ag (not sure which) introduced asian beetles (look like lady bugs) to control some aphid that goes after soybeans. Of course, the beetle has no natural enemies and now we are infested.
You'd think at some point they would learn. Boneheads.
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Oh, that has disaster written all over it. Here in Wisconsin, the DNR or Dept of Ag (not sure which) introduced asian beetles (look like lady bugs) to control some aphid that goes after soybeans. Of course, the beetle has no natural enemies and now we are infested.
You'd think at some point they would learn. Boneheads.
nah....they don't need to learn, as they already know everything.
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give it two weeks and a brain worm or two, and all bets are off on that.