Texas Makes Zombie Fire Ants 398
eldavojohn writes "What do you do when a foreign species has been introduced to your land from another continent? Bring over the natural predator from the other continent. Scientists in Texas have introduced four kinds of phorid flies from South America to fight fire ants. These USDA approved flies dive bomb ants and lay an egg inside the ant. The maggot hatches and eats away juicy tender delicious ant brain until the ant is nothing more than a zombie that wanders around for two weeks before the head falls off and the ant dies. A couple of these flies will cause the ants to modify their behavior and this will be a very slow acting solution to curb the $1 billion in damage these ants do to Texas cattle ranches and — oddly enough — electrical equipment like circuit breakers. You may remember zombifying parasites hitting insects like cockroaches."
Re:What stupidity. (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you do when a foreign species has been introduced to your land from another continent?
They aren't native and unfortunately in Texas there aren't any natural predators to the fire ant (such as the ant eater).
Re:What stupidity. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What stupidity. (Score:5, Insightful)
If only Slashdot provided some way to get more details, so you could read more about the plan instead of just assuming they did no kind of study and are totally winging it with no thought or planning whatsoever.
"The flies do not attack native ants..." (Score:5, Insightful)
The phorids will have whole generations to refine their taste.
No need (Score:4, Insightful)
In Texas, fire ants are bountiful. There will be no need to attack other ants...
Of course that's now, it will be interesting to see what happens when the fire ant population starts dwindling. But basically these will probably just keep it in more of a natural check.
Re:What stupidity. (Score:2, Insightful)
People are animals too, as are insects and worms and fish and dogs and frogs.
Being a member of Animalia usually means you're an animal, but the common term animal is not universally applied to Parazoa/Porifera(sponges) even though sponges are technically part of the "Animal kingdom".
I think in general though, it would be easier to control mammals (like us humans) and amphibians rather than insects which tend to bread much more vociferously.
I think that since this is a science topic and a "nerd" Web site that the use of the term "animal" should be used in its more scientific (rather than colloquial) meaning.
Re:The CSIRO would disagree with you (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure the aborigines are delighted at the introduction of the British prisoners ... blah blah blah ...
In the 40,000 years that Asians and Europeans advanced from paleolithic thru Iron and "culture" and technology (for example, sailing around the world), the aborigines were basically stagnant, never going beyond the stone age, developing agriculture, the wheel, etc. IOW, they were ripe for conquest by a dynamic, expanding culture.
Re:Misleading Headline (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What stupidity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, are there any native predators for these flies then? Or will it merely set off another even more vicious plague, one which attacks the native species instead of its intended target like most of these ill conceived schemes. If introducing one foreign pest is bad, introducing an entire food chain seems far worse to me.
Re:The CSIRO would disagree with you (Score:3, Insightful)
Occam's Razor & Peter Principle (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I'm very tempted to apply:
1. Occam's Razor. If someone consistently acts stupid, talks stupid, etc, there are two possible explanations:
A: He's stupid.
B: He's a really really smart guy and a great actor, and pretends so well to be stupid that nobody can tell the difference.
I think you'll agree that the first is the simpler explanation.
2. The Peter Principle: everyone keeps getting promoted until they become incompetent for the job they just got promoted to. (E.g., because it needs different skills than the previous one.)
Politicians are actually one of the original examples in Peter's book. To get elected you need charisma, basically. But after you get elected, you need stuff like management skills, you need to know economics, etc. None of those played any role in convincing the people to elect you. So it's quite easy to end up with a bunch of elected politicians who genuinely don't have any more skills than talking convincingly out the arse and looking good in front of a camera. The skills they'd actually need to do a good job in the office, they simply don't have.
Worse yet, we elect those who can _lie_ convincingly or at least conveniently not mention half the truth. My standard example is the Phillips curve: all else being equal (and invariably out of your control), inflation and unemployment depend on each other. You push one down, the other goes up. Now think of all the politicians whose claim to deserving the office is, basically, "OMG, under the current government there is inflation! We'll reduce that!" or conversely for unemployment. But they never mention that their plan involves the other going _up_. If they told you that, that would be political suicide. So their getting elected depends on claiming to get one up, while strongly implying and getting you to assume (though not actually saying so) that the other will obviously stay put.
Or occasionally one promises to solve both. 'Cause, I suppose, if you're going to lie anyway, might as well go all the way.
Then we wonder how come they lie after they got elected, instead of actually doing what they promised. Duh. Because we tested their ability to lie, not the ability to do what they promised. We just promoted someone to a position for which they're unqualified and incompetent.
3. As a bonus: Hanlon's Razor. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I don't doubt that some of the above mentioned don't outright lie, but genuinely Peter's Principle applies. They don't understand economics well enough to know that they're promising an impossibility.
Re:What stupidity. (Score:2, Insightful)
Many invasive plants are close enough to pests, even if just by eventual ubiquity.
Re:Eh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Watched? You WATCHED One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? What good does that do, if you don't turn the pages? Isn't anyone literate anymore? Does no one READ anything that Hollywood doesn't produce? Phhhhtt.
FYI, I've watched the movie and I've read the book. The same with Catch 22, Fahrenheit 451, Slaughter House 5, and many, many others. Unfortunately the movie producer Michael Douglas was not featured in the book, so it wouldn't have been relevant to mention the book in my post.
And yes, I may have read books that Hollywood hasn't produced. I don't know, because I generally don't check to see if Hollywood made a movie of it before reading.
Re:You may remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just like... (Score:2, Insightful)