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.

The new lure for the flies is just one of several defense efforts in Texas, which stands to suffer heavy losses from an invasion. Screwworms are a ferocious foe to many animals, but are particularly devastating to livestock.

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[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Iirc there is a massive breeding factory in Central America that breeds sterile flies to help decrease the fly population. It works great, they produce tens of millions of these sterile, sexy (to other flies) bugs every year. The other flies fuck them and they never produce offspring.

So the Trump admin stopped funding them because "hurr durr why are we funding a fly bordello in panama". Now they're producing like 10% of what they were before

So: voíla, flesh eating flies and now we have to start funding the lab again AND stop an invasive species that's here now.