phorid fly
bleimanb | May 21, 2009It seems like we've been covering zombie bugs a lot lately. The newest story comes from Texas, where researchers are trying out a new form of pest control on invasive fire ants: using parasitic flies to lay eggs in the ants brains, zombify them, and then explode their heads with emerging larvae. Seems reasonable.
We're under attack!
Researchers at Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas are experimenting by releasing four different species of phorid flies (a native predator of fire ants from their native South America) into fire ants' new habitats. The flies…
bleimanb | December 12, 2007Two weeks ago, we asked you what your favoritest animals in the world were. Then, last week we asked you to up the ante and get weirder. You responded in turn with a veritable cornucopia of odd critters some of which we had never heard of! (Just kidding of course we'd heard of them, we're like freaking bizarre animal encyclopedias.)
Anyway, without further ado, your responses (in video, whenever possible):
Drhoz! wants to cuddle with a tardigrade, aka a 'water bear.' Who doesn't?
Unfortunately, Drhoz! also claims to...
... be open to "shacking up" with a goose barnacle if it buys dinner…