Happy Tuesday! Who's ready to hear about
1. Flesh-eating maggots (mostly go after cattle)
2. They're native to the US
3. The USDA has kept them out of the US since the 1960s
4. But the flesh-eating maggots are making a 21st century comeback. And believe it or not it may be thanks to MAGA.
1. Flesh-eating maggots (mostly go after cattle)
2. They're native to the US
3. The USDA has kept them out of the US since the 1960s
4. But the flesh-eating maggots are making a 21st century comeback. And believe it or not it may be thanks to MAGA.
Comments
Screwworms don't have the patience for that. They lay eggs on wounds on wounded live animals.
Once hatched the larvae often burrow straight down into the host like a screw, hence the name "screwworm."
If you had no idea "flesh eating maggots" were part of our national wildlife, that's thanks to the USDA.
USDA eradicated them in the US in the 1960s. Then, with international cooperation, they were eradicated southward through all of Central America.
Lady screwworms only mate once. They're VERY focused on their career (laying thousands of eggs) & don't have time for romance.
So USDA raises millions of male screwworms, sterilizes them with low radiation doses, & releases them into the wild.
Population collapse quickly follows.
It's very tidy. No pesticides, no roundups to medicate cattle.
But to keep them gone, you have to keep flooding the zone with sterile male flies every single day.
And the US-Mexico border is big! The logistics it took to raise & release that many sterile males was super costly.
That way, there's only a narrow bottleneck that needs coverage with sterile male screwworms.
screwworms only eat live tissue, & leave the dead necrotic tissue to keep rotting :C
Between the brainworms & the maggots the US sure is getting special.
Most bad things in this country are.