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  1. #1
    Brown Recluse
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    In Texas, making Zombies is a good thing

    Parasitic flies turn fire ants into zombies

    http://floridaenvironment.com/images...orid%20Fly.jpg

    By Bill Hanna, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Bill Hanna, Fort Worth Star-telegram – Tue May 12, 2:09 pm ET

    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.

  2. #2

    Fucking awesome, I love nature, waiting in anticipation for the mutant flies that have evolved to eat human brains.

  3. #3

    in before freezing the gorillas to death.

  4. #4
    Banned.

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    Importing species from another part of the world is always a good thing, am i right? I mean, it's not like it could possibly backfire.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaylia View Post
    Importing species from another part of the world is always a good thing, am i right? I mean, it's not like it could possibly backfire.
    ^

  6. #6
    Like a boss yo
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    Hybrid Ant/Fly monster gogo!

  7. #7
    CoP Dynamis
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    sweet ass

  8. #8
    E. Body
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    YouTube - Body Invaders

    What the FUCK nature?

  9. #9
    Relic Shield
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    Wow that's freaky as shit. So they have no control over the ants, yet somehow their presence inside the ants head just makes them get up and walk around - seemingly their own accord, even though they have no brain with which to control themselves. It's some headless chicken type crap.

    Well, aparently it wont disturb the other population of ants, but I can't help thinking that they'll start dive bombing into human ears and burrow inside their brains and start controlling Texans. I doubt there will be much noticable difference in their behaviour, but it's still a scary thought.

  10. #10
    Like a boss yo
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    Not all of us here in texas are idiots...just most texans

  11. #11
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    New contender for
    Japanese Bug Fights .com
    Specializes in DoT

  12. #12
    Electric Six groupie
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    Fucking apocalypse. Get your ant zombie kits ready (Double-barreled pump action RAID cans).

  13. #13
    Certified Man-Child
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    Fucking awesome and creepy at the same time lol.

  14. #14
    the whitest knight u' know
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    There's some worm who's eggs end up being in bird shit on leaves. Snails eat it. They grow inside the snail. They take over the snail's brain. Drive the snail's body up to the top of the tree canopy. Advertise the snail as food so birds come and eat them. The birds eat the worm out of the snail's body. The worm gets digested and its eggs end up being shat out by the bird back down onto the trees.

    WTF how does that cycle even begin?

  15. #15
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    God, duh.

  16. #16
    the whitest knight u' know
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    God is fucked up.

  17. #17
    Ridill
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kais View Post
    YouTube - Body Invaders

    What the FUCK nature?
    wow this one's way freakier than the zombie ants


    they don't just put larvae to live as parasites until they're ready to hatch, at which point they tear their way out of the caterpillar...

    they release some chemicals in the process that make the caterpillar make its cocoon over the "hatched" larvae instead of itself, and then violently protect them until it starves to death...


    fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that

  18. #18
    Spiders are Awesome
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    YouTube - Cordyceps: attack of the killer fungi - Planet Earth Attenborough BBC wildlife

    Cordyceps fungi is way cooler than some silly flies. It actually directs the ant's actions before it kills the ant.

  19. #19

    fuck THAT, but awesome.

  20. #20
    Cerberus
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    fucking awesome hahaha

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