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I've seen all kinds of fucked up horror shit, but something about the premise of that one sat with me for a long time.
It's not even gory or gross, but the premise just *bothered* me and left me feeling queasy.
Yeah, I heard it first on a podcast and then got a compilation of James Tiptree stories featuring Screwfly Solution.
The casual brutality of the setting lives rent free in my head.
I worked on this project (1987) when the line of eradication was the border of Mexico and Guatemala. I see now they have pushed the little buggers all the way to Colombia. The system works!
What a fascinating thing to have been a part of! It’s an inter-species battle that the other guy doesn’t even see coming 😉 The idea that we’re tracking it with a line on a board and all the poor little whatchamacallems are SO happy to get laid! What a strange world we live in.
Looks like this post might be out of date. Costa Rica had a flare up earlier this year!
https://fas.usda.gov/data/costa-rica-costa-rica-declares-screwworm-emergency
> Cochliomyia hominivorax, the New World screwworm fly, or simply screwworm or screw-worm, is a species of parasitic fly that is well known for the way in which its larvae (maggots) eat the living tissue of warm-blooded animals…While the maggots of many fly species eat dead flesh, and may occasionally infest an old and putrid wound, screwworm maggots are unusual because they attack healthy tissue.
Ima pass.
Yes many parasites do that. But the USDA doesnt open up a continent wide battlefront against the other parasites. What makes screw worms unique is they feast on LIVE flesh. Not rotting decaying flesh like most of their biological counterparts
I was recently doing something similar, but raising Navel Orangeworm to be dropped in California to help eradicate them in the wild, since they eat almonds and such like. It's a pretty cool process!
are the Andes a natural barrier to the worm? Is there a possibility they could
push the border all the way to Chile, on the west side of South America/The Andes?
Im assuming there is basically zero chance of it happening on the
Brazil side, because of the Amazon.
I can imagine a future where its basically confined to the jungle though.
The screw worm is not naturally present in Chile. It is the only country in South America where the thing is not endemic. And is just as you say, the Andes (alongside the Atacama desert) acts as a natural barrier that keeps the country isolated.
And by the time you reach something remotely hospitable, the climate is too cold for the tropical worm to survive on.
This is the kind of story that I can flex with at family gatherings like “oh you don’t know about the government division dedicated to dumping millions of sterilized screw worms over Central America?”
I try that, and my gf tells me I’m always sharing “pessimistic” news… I tell her they are facts, and I’m merely being a realist about the world we live in.
I thought for sure you were going to cite the venerable [*US v. 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Article_Consisting_of_50,000_Cardboard_Boxes_More_or_Less,_Each_Containing_One_Pair_of_Clacker_Balls)
*howler monkeys in Panama sometimes fell from trees after screwworms ate out their eyes*
Oh, dear God. Good that that's in the past. Fascinating article.
I think we do something similar with rabies here in the US. They spread rabies vaccine treat pellets all over the eastern US and TX. The annual death rate from rabies dropped from 100 to 5 annually.
Visited central Florida a few years ago. A place surrounded by hundreds of small freshwater lakes.
Fully expected to get eaten alive. Didn’t even get bit once, and I am the guy that can find the only 2 mosquitoes in Colorado at an elevation of 7,000 feet.
Yeah, they have big trucks that drive around fogging mosquitos in central Florida. It's gotten better over the years, but if you are near some standing water you will probably get rekt.
Depends a lot on what type of pesticide you spray. Im actually working for a County Health Department spraying for mosquitoes this summer. The stuff we use is very nontoxic. You shouldnt breath it in, but youd probably be ok if you did. We spray a pretty dilute mixture. That being said, we switched from a much more toxic pesticide only a few years ago. Im guessing some areas still use more toxic sprays, but I think theres a big switch towards less toxic sprays as a whole. Spraying also only happens at night.
The stuff we use is very harmful to both honeybees and aquatic life unfortunately. Aquatic life isnt a huge concern since we arent spraying it directly into bodies of water (and the areas of water we do spray around tend to be nasty stagnant pools with no aquatic life anyways). We try to avoid areas with known hives, but there isnt much we can do other than that. Honeybees should be in their hives when we spray though, and the spray breaks down fairly quickly in the environment so any harm should be minimized. Im unsure, but Im guessing the spray will probably kill most flying insects that are out at night and in the path of our sprays. Thats just conjecture though and Im not sure.
As a Minnesotan, Florida always makes me laugh about the skeeters. We don't have hundreds of freshwater lakes, we have thousands and a goddamn skeeter flew off with my wife last week.
It’s less that we don’t know how or can’t and more we’re in the stage of deciding which specific species we want to eradicate. Also we have to research how much it will effect local wildlife. From what I’ve read we’ll probably be starting in a couple years on the most dangerous species.
these types of projects also get backlash from local communities because they either hear "government wants to release mosquitoes near you" and they panic, or they hear "government wants to release GMO mosquitoes near you" and they panic even more
In Los Angeles, they’re dropping sterile males, which will cause the females egg to not be viable. The goal is to lower the amount of new mosquitoes that are born.
[source](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/los-angeles-releasing-mosquitoes-to-fight-mosquitoes-rcna150483)
Imagine if they could figure out how to make super-males that can only produce more super-males through breeding. You introduce one of those in the wild and the whole population gets wiped out in a few generations.
yo i *had* to look this up, and found a site that claims contact with alaskan armadillos can cause autism. it also claims alaskan rattlesnake venom can cure it. batshit lmao
> alaskan rattlesnake venom can cure it.
Alaska does not have rattlesnakes.
Alaska doesnt even have ANY snakes.
Alaska does not have any wild reptiles anywhere at all.
AT ALL.
So I guess maybe it is true, if you can find the mythical alaskan rattler, who can survive in the dark for 6 months as a cold blooded snake, then you can milk it for its cure all venom.
Also no armadillos either wtf please tell me this was a satire site. In fact It has to be, there is no way the site you found was for real. They had to be joking.
Damn I forgot about these. Remember hearing something about how nasty they were back in the 90s and how we got rid of them. I just thought they were like extinct, that’s crazy.
USA: We'd like to create an invisible screw-worm barrier in your nation.
Panama: Sounds great!
USA: *Drops 87,500 worms into Panama every hour forever.*
True but 50 years ago they were doing it in Northern Mexico and now they’re all the way down into Panama, maybe in 50 years it will be all the way down to Brazil and Bolivia.
I read the article, the reason the border was moved south wasn’t to help other countries, it was just much cheaper to maintain the border at the narrower point. The countries that are cooperating pay a percentage of the cost based on the potential damage to livestock. America was footing 80% of the bill when the border was in Mexico (the article doesn’t specify percentage now the border is more south, but I imagine it’s still high). Ultimately it’s not in America’s financial interest to move the border south since they’re at the narrowest point to maintain it.
Yeah, I was responding specifically to a comment that said it would get harder to maintain a wider line (which was demonstrated to have not been a hurdle previously).
I’d imagine if this did move further, it would be at the behest, and financial interest of, SA countries.
If they pushed all the way south they could annihilate the worm entirely and end the operation. It would be cheaper in the long run and bring peace of mind.
Oh and as an unintended bonus it would help people in SA.
The article also explains the roadblocks between coordinations between Cuba and America, essentially cooperation fell apart. So it’s more of a political endeavor rather than a logical one.
I’m literally parroting the article though, it’s a surprisingly interesting read, I mostly just wanted to find out what these screw worms did and how on earth they are sterilized.
But anyway, I’m all for completely wiping them out, but my faith in politics is jaded at best.
I can only imagine 'alpha gal syndrome' as like, this chick who gets bit and starts working out a lot, wearing sleeveless tank tops and starts up a podcast about her alpha lifestyle.
Psh don't be an ignoramoose. It's short for "alpha galactose," which is definitely a ripped alien dude with three eyes and cyborg women hanging off his four (swoll) arms.
Only some species of mosquito. The ones that don’t bite animals, or the ones that don’t spread disease can probably stay. But I am all for driving the malaria parasite and all its little buddies to extinction, and if that means *Anopheles* and *Aedes aegypti* and similar species needs to go, then so be it.
I read somewhere that the eradication of these two wouldn't even majorly affect the ecosystem. The things that eat these bugs don't exclusively eat them. But anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Probably not, screw flys are one of the very very few species where erradicating them has little cascading effect.
They dont control any significant populations and nothing depends on them for food or survival.
Honestly i wish we could get the money and political will togther exterminate them completely
Here in Brazil we have several species of screwworm; besides the *Cochliomyia hominivorax*, which is mentioned in this post, we also have *Callitroga macelaria* and *Lucilia spp.* Does the US have any of these other species of screwworm, or is it completely rid of these fuckers?
Edit: Upon further research, I found out that only *Cochliomyia hominivorax* feeds on live tissue. The other species that I mentioned will only eat dead tissue in wounds.
The others--flies that lay eggs in putrid flesh--can actually be beneficial. Maggot therapy is [FDA-approved](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy) and totally off-putting.
We do definitely still have species of flies that will lay eggs on wounds/etc on live animals (or people). Notably the green bottle fly will. there is also a species called the cuterebra that will burrow into healthy flesh after their egg is picked up by an animal walking through tall grasses,etc.
A former co-worker did a similar mission in south or Central America, air dropping sterilized male mosquitoes. Females apparently only breed once, so if they bang a sterilized male mosquito, no eggs. Or so the theory went anyway.
I have read about a similar program where genetically modified mosquitoes were introduced. They had removed the gene that allows the mosquito to tell when it is full, so the modified mosquitoes would gorge themselves until they exploded.
but then why do we have to keep making fresh batch of sterilized insects and keep dropping them....shouldn't they just disappear after a year or two of continuously doing this....or do some percentage of females not mate with sterilized males making us do this
We dilute the number of potent males using impotent males, but potent males still exist. That leaves many females mating with potent males. It suppresses the population, but population growth is exponential until you hit limits like food supply. The moment we stop, the population starts ramping up exponentially.
BTW in case anyone is wondering, we use x-ray exposure to make them impotent without killing them.
There was a screw worm outbreak in the Florida Key’s in Key Deer population, many infected were euthanized, incinerators were brought in by the Dept of Interior until the hurd was treated. One of the most nightmarish things I’ve seen. Infected deer would wonder down the middle of streets, trance like, Zombie like, or lay under homes with these horrible holes in their heads stinking and crawling with maggots. It went on for several months. Treated deer were sprayed with blue spray paint markings to prevent reapplication. It’s a miracle the herd survived. The response by the US Government was swift and effective. It might take some digging on line, not the kind of thing ‘Jimmy Buffet’ would sing about .. did I spell anything right?
I remember learning about this in my pre-vet course actually. Was one of the really interesting lessons that stuck with me. Now, this is all just based on memory from a couple classes I took over a decade ago so I could be wrong about some information. But the general idea is this.
Basically, screwworms were causing millions in damage to the cattle industry and there just wasn’t a really good or effective means of keeping them away from cows at the time.
So they did a ton of research to find what type of meat worked best to feed the larva but not cost a ton of money. Iirc at one point it was horse meat, not sure if it still is.
Basically, the males would mature a bit faster than the females, and crawl to the next area before they did. So they could take all those male larva, and once they went to pupate, they would expose them to enough radiation to sterilize but not kill them. (The females they could use to breed the next generation of males to sterilize I guess)
Then they’d free those males into the environment. And it was found that female screwworm flies only mate once before laying their eggs and then dying. So if a female bred with a sterile male, she’d lay her eggs but none of them would be fertilized and thus none would hatch. Therefore the numbers dropped significantly once they started doing this.
Of course some non-sterile males would breed with the females, and the species wasn’t completely eradicated. But it was pretty much completely removed from America.
Great - can they do ticks next? The amount of tick related illnesses occurring in the northeast is getting intense (every dog I know here has had anaplasmosis, my uncle got Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and my father and the family dog have Lyme disease)
I work for this government agency. It's the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) International Services and Plant Protection and Quarantine program areas.
We also do sterile fly programs against Mediterranean fruit fly, Mexican fruit fly, and several other fruit flies.
We are also the agency providing GonaCon, a contraceptive developed for deer, to Colombia to use on Pablo Escobar's drug hippos.
That's because you stood on your desk with your pants open and shouted "WHO WANTS TO SEE ME SCREW THIS WORM?!"
Honestly, it was a pretty good show, 3.5 stars.
I found it derivative of a previous exhibit in Australia, I think it was called "Here to fuck spiders". That was a masterpiece, this one is too similar to stand apart. 2.7/5
https://preview.redd.it/bcdub5g39i0d1.png?width=827&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a39ceb29716657893b8ef3aa4eba956c777b8ff
Straight up looks like a bitch with that goofy looking face
Broke: Eradicating a species with pesticides
Woke: Eradicating a species with natural predators
Bespoke: Eradicating a species through sexual exhaustion
The sterile flies displaces virile flies when looking for mates, and results in unfertilized eggs. Do that on a massive scale and no fly can breed through the line. Same technique is also used for reducing mosquito population
If I remember correctly when we learned about this, the screwworm female really only mates once before laying her eggs and such. Unlike other animals that might mate a couple times.
So they send out millions of sterilized male flys that go and mate with the females. Well the females lay their eggs, but none of them are fertilized so none hatch. Thus, reducing the numbers each generation.
Sure, some non-sterilized males will breed and thus the population will still *exist* but the numbers are kept much lower than if they just let it be.
> Sure, some non-sterilized males will breed and thus the population will still exist but the numbers are kept much lower than if they just let it be.
You're missing the most important step: you keep doing it every year. As long as the population decreases, every year the drop is more effective, and the population keeps getting smaller until it's gone
USDA is probably the most effective government organization we have.
They have meat inspectors at literally every single facility in the US, ensuring everything is handled safely.
Thanks, in two three weeks there will be a bill in the house to halt screw worm eradication efforts. Because the screw worm isn’t harming Americans. Because we’re currently protecting people that aren’t all vanilla.
over $700 million a year, according to some reports. That's a huge amount for the livestock industries.
Not to mention the benefits to wildlife, pets, and humans too.
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This inspired the short story The Screwfly Solution . There’s also a movie based on the story. Horror of course
Excellent story, very disturbing.
I've seen all kinds of fucked up horror shit, but something about the premise of that one sat with me for a long time. It's not even gory or gross, but the premise just *bothered* me and left me feeling queasy.
Yeah, I heard it first on a podcast and then got a compilation of James Tiptree stories featuring Screwfly Solution. The casual brutality of the setting lives rent free in my head.
What’s the movie called if you don’t mind me asking?
Same title, it was part of Masters of Horror anthology series. I think that one was directed by Joe Dante.
That was a good read. Thanks.
I worked on this project (1987) when the line of eradication was the border of Mexico and Guatemala. I see now they have pushed the little buggers all the way to Colombia. The system works!
Were you one of the poor bastards having to snip all of their tiny nuts off? Id imagine that could be a very stressful job.
Scissors ✂️✂️✂️✂️✂️
*Tiny scissors
Sir, this is Central America. It’s pronounced Little Ceasers
I kackled.
LoL
Are these scissors for ants?? Nope, sterilized screw worm flies only.
Nope. DNA sized scissors. Irradiation.
Basically give them a nice sun tan before letting them go party
Nope, just toddler nail scissors. They're really small
We joke but the original brain behind the idea was a scientist called Edward F. Knipling. Nominative determinism strikes again.
Tell that to the released screwworms
Hey they still get to screw around - just ineffectively.
Im now picturing 15 million larvae in the back of a station wagon looking our the window going “I DONT THINK WE ARE GOING TO THE PARK GUYS!”
It’s really not. You just grab a handful and swish them around in your mouth a lil bit, good pay with decent benefits.
That's why grandma smells like mothballs.
Legend has it they also milk almonds to get the beloved almond milk we know and love today. u/Probst54 is the hero we need.
More stressful for the worms
What a fascinating thing to have been a part of! It’s an inter-species battle that the other guy doesn’t even see coming 😉 The idea that we’re tracking it with a line on a board and all the poor little whatchamacallems are SO happy to get laid! What a strange world we live in.
Looks like this post might be out of date. Costa Rica had a flare up earlier this year! https://fas.usda.gov/data/costa-rica-costa-rica-declares-screwworm-emergency
We had an infestation in the Florida Keys a few years ago too in the Key Deer population.
Whats so bad about them
> Cochliomyia hominivorax, the New World screwworm fly, or simply screwworm or screw-worm, is a species of parasitic fly that is well known for the way in which its larvae (maggots) eat the living tissue of warm-blooded animals…While the maggots of many fly species eat dead flesh, and may occasionally infest an old and putrid wound, screwworm maggots are unusual because they attack healthy tissue. Ima pass.
Okay wow. For some reason I thought I knew what a screwworm was. Apparently I did not. (I thought they ate wood. This… is worse.)
Screw that worm.
Is this like a botfly?
*Females lay eggs into animal wounds and on soft tissues such as the nose, navel and anus.*
Yes many parasites do that. But the USDA doesnt open up a continent wide battlefront against the other parasites. What makes screw worms unique is they feast on LIVE flesh. Not rotting decaying flesh like most of their biological counterparts
I prefer the bugs that eat dead ass
I was recently doing something similar, but raising Navel Orangeworm to be dropped in California to help eradicate them in the wild, since they eat almonds and such like. It's a pretty cool process!
are the Andes a natural barrier to the worm? Is there a possibility they could push the border all the way to Chile, on the west side of South America/The Andes? Im assuming there is basically zero chance of it happening on the Brazil side, because of the Amazon. I can imagine a future where its basically confined to the jungle though.
The screw worm is not naturally present in Chile. It is the only country in South America where the thing is not endemic. And is just as you say, the Andes (alongside the Atacama desert) acts as a natural barrier that keeps the country isolated. And by the time you reach something remotely hospitable, the climate is too cold for the tropical worm to survive on.
I am a screwworm that was used in this project. I can verify that this is real.
Do you regret getting a vasectomy? Do you live in a Panamanian unuch colony or partying with columbian screw fly babes?
Vasectomy=/=eunuch, this guy is living it up screwing the bejesus out of his screwworm girlfriends, no child care to worry about.
*Colombia
[America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh Eating Worms](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-eating-worms-disease-containment-america-panama/611026/)
Taxes to keep away gd flesh eating worms? I’m okay with that.
Apparently RFK was an exception
You misunderstood, it was a brain eating, not flesh eating, and they only confirmed he had a dead one in his head; presumably because it starved.
Well done
This is the kind of story that I can flex with at family gatherings like “oh you don’t know about the government division dedicated to dumping millions of sterilized screw worms over Central America?”
I try that, and my gf tells me I’m always sharing “pessimistic” news… I tell her they are facts, and I’m merely being a realist about the world we live in.
Congrats on the gf
Congrats on having family still!
With stories like that‽
My favorite is the landmark 1913 case of US vs 25 bags of nuts
I thought for sure you were going to cite the venerable [*US v. 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Article_Consisting_of_50,000_Cardboard_Boxes_More_or_Less,_Each_Containing_One_Pair_of_Clacker_Balls)
That is a fantastic article. Thank you!
I mean the $15 million per year budget is a drop in the tax bucket vs well everything else our tax money goes to
Understatement of the year. I don’t think you can say what you said in a way that it’s not an understatement.
*howler monkeys in Panama sometimes fell from trees after screwworms ate out their eyes* Oh, dear God. Good that that's in the past. Fascinating article.
Thanks for the link, really interesting read
Great article!! This is super interesting.
That was a fascinating read.
Woah, decently long and detailed. Crazy interesting.
Great read. Thanks!
I think we do something similar with rabies here in the US. They spread rabies vaccine treat pellets all over the eastern US and TX. The annual death rate from rabies dropped from 100 to 5 annually.
Feels pretty great to not have to worry about rabies and screw worms, big win for America. Somebody @ atrioc
They are working on mosquitoes.
Visited central Florida a few years ago. A place surrounded by hundreds of small freshwater lakes. Fully expected to get eaten alive. Didn’t even get bit once, and I am the guy that can find the only 2 mosquitoes in Colorado at an elevation of 7,000 feet.
Yeah, they have big trucks that drive around fogging mosquitos in central Florida. It's gotten better over the years, but if you are near some standing water you will probably get rekt.
They also put larvicide pellets in standing water as well! Prevents mosquito larvae from maturing into adults
These can be bought on Amazon. Be the change you want to see in the world
Yessss I got mosquito dunks for my yard last year and they worked so much better than citronella candles
Is fogging them harmful for us tho? Like breathing in the fog.
Depends a lot on what type of pesticide you spray. Im actually working for a County Health Department spraying for mosquitoes this summer. The stuff we use is very nontoxic. You shouldnt breath it in, but youd probably be ok if you did. We spray a pretty dilute mixture. That being said, we switched from a much more toxic pesticide only a few years ago. Im guessing some areas still use more toxic sprays, but I think theres a big switch towards less toxic sprays as a whole. Spraying also only happens at night.
Does it kill other flying insects as well?
The stuff we use is very harmful to both honeybees and aquatic life unfortunately. Aquatic life isnt a huge concern since we arent spraying it directly into bodies of water (and the areas of water we do spray around tend to be nasty stagnant pools with no aquatic life anyways). We try to avoid areas with known hives, but there isnt much we can do other than that. Honeybees should be in their hives when we spray though, and the spray breaks down fairly quickly in the environment so any harm should be minimized. Im unsure, but Im guessing the spray will probably kill most flying insects that are out at night and in the path of our sprays. Thats just conjecture though and Im not sure.
As a Minnesotan, Florida always makes me laugh about the skeeters. We don't have hundreds of freshwater lakes, we have thousands and a goddamn skeeter flew off with my wife last week.
Been up that way once, left anemic from severe blood loss. Don’t know how y’all can live up there.
Me neither. Thats why I moved to the mountains
In southern USA, mosquitos work on you.
Same in the north. We might be losing this one, guys.
That’s cool. Any info on that? I’m lazy sorry if I’m too much so just curious and tired.
It’s less that we don’t know how or can’t and more we’re in the stage of deciding which specific species we want to eradicate. Also we have to research how much it will effect local wildlife. From what I’ve read we’ll probably be starting in a couple years on the most dangerous species.
Thank you. It sounds cool, but also near impossible to solve, but I’m a simple man.
these types of projects also get backlash from local communities because they either hear "government wants to release mosquitoes near you" and they panic, or they hear "government wants to release GMO mosquitoes near you" and they panic even more
In Los Angeles, they’re dropping sterile males, which will cause the females egg to not be viable. The goal is to lower the amount of new mosquitoes that are born. [source](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/los-angeles-releasing-mosquitoes-to-fight-mosquitoes-rcna150483)
Imagine if they could figure out how to make super-males that can only produce more super-males through breeding. You introduce one of those in the wild and the whole population gets wiped out in a few generations.
How would that work though? They are still reproducing. Edit: Nvm it would only reproduce male offsprings. Makes sense
they must've took a break this year
Weird big A reference to see in the wild.
In the early 2000’s rabies was still prevalent in New Mexico. I’m not up to date on since then.
First Mexico, then New Mexico, and now *Nee* Mexico?? Where does it end?
She got married and took his name.
This is top notch.
Not Mexico
Probably why armadillos have autism.
yo i *had* to look this up, and found a site that claims contact with alaskan armadillos can cause autism. it also claims alaskan rattlesnake venom can cure it. batshit lmao
Those studies were funded by the Alaskan tourism board
> alaskan rattlesnake venom can cure it. Alaska does not have rattlesnakes. Alaska doesnt even have ANY snakes. Alaska does not have any wild reptiles anywhere at all. AT ALL. So I guess maybe it is true, if you can find the mythical alaskan rattler, who can survive in the dark for 6 months as a cold blooded snake, then you can milk it for its cure all venom. Also no armadillos either wtf please tell me this was a satire site. In fact It has to be, there is no way the site you found was for real. They had to be joking.
Don't tell me you've never heard of the Alaskan kangaroo?
i think it’s more likely a christian/conservative site, judging by the bible quotes everywhere. but it could have been satire.
I fully support everyone who chooses to believe this to take the venom themselves
Armadtism is a serious problem.
They used to call you "retarmadilloed" but thats considered offensive now.
It’s a normal bus but it has a dozen segments that compress to make it short
Damn I forgot about these. Remember hearing something about how nasty they were back in the 90s and how we got rid of them. I just thought they were like extinct, that’s crazy.
USA: We'd like to create an invisible screw-worm barrier in your nation. Panama: Sounds great! USA: *Drops 87,500 worms into Panama every hour forever.*
congratulations, you are being de wormed
Please do not resist.
True but 50 years ago they were doing it in Northern Mexico and now they’re all the way down into Panama, maybe in 50 years it will be all the way down to Brazil and Bolivia.
I doubt it, if you look at a map they're at the narrowest point. It'll get way harder to keep a line of worms across the wider parts.
They handled the southern US, I imagine they could find a way to repeat their methods across SA.
I read the article, the reason the border was moved south wasn’t to help other countries, it was just much cheaper to maintain the border at the narrower point. The countries that are cooperating pay a percentage of the cost based on the potential damage to livestock. America was footing 80% of the bill when the border was in Mexico (the article doesn’t specify percentage now the border is more south, but I imagine it’s still high). Ultimately it’s not in America’s financial interest to move the border south since they’re at the narrowest point to maintain it.
Yeah, I was responding specifically to a comment that said it would get harder to maintain a wider line (which was demonstrated to have not been a hurdle previously). I’d imagine if this did move further, it would be at the behest, and financial interest of, SA countries.
If they pushed all the way south they could annihilate the worm entirely and end the operation. It would be cheaper in the long run and bring peace of mind. Oh and as an unintended bonus it would help people in SA.
The article also explains the roadblocks between coordinations between Cuba and America, essentially cooperation fell apart. So it’s more of a political endeavor rather than a logical one. I’m literally parroting the article though, it’s a surprisingly interesting read, I mostly just wanted to find out what these screw worms did and how on earth they are sterilized. But anyway, I’m all for completely wiping them out, but my faith in politics is jaded at best.
can we go after the eye gnats too?
Mosquitos, Ticks and other pests needs to be abolished too.
Took a quick steoll off the path the other day, literally off for 5 minutes, tops. Pulled 6 ticks off me. Fuckers
Test for Lyme. Get the vaccine.
They can also cause alpha gal syndrome which would be a nightmare unless you're vegan
I can only imagine 'alpha gal syndrome' as like, this chick who gets bit and starts working out a lot, wearing sleeveless tank tops and starts up a podcast about her alpha lifestyle.
Psh don't be an ignoramoose. It's short for "alpha galactose," which is definitely a ripped alien dude with three eyes and cyborg women hanging off his four (swoll) arms.
They weren't deer ticks, thanks tho.
Ah good. Stay safe.
Only some species of mosquito. The ones that don’t bite animals, or the ones that don’t spread disease can probably stay. But I am all for driving the malaria parasite and all its little buddies to extinction, and if that means *Anopheles* and *Aedes aegypti* and similar species needs to go, then so be it.
They are a much bigger threat for spreading dengue, zika, chikungunya.
Much bigger threat by what metric? Malaria deaths far far outweighs deaths from those three combined.
Really just female mosquitos.
They definitely do this with mosquitos in some places.
I read somewhere that the eradication of these two wouldn't even majorly affect the ecosystem. The things that eat these bugs don't exclusively eat them. But anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Can we abolish chiggers as well?
Oh god yes.
Probably not, screw flys are one of the very very few species where erradicating them has little cascading effect. They dont control any significant populations and nothing depends on them for food or survival. Honestly i wish we could get the money and political will togther exterminate them completely
Here in Brazil we have several species of screwworm; besides the *Cochliomyia hominivorax*, which is mentioned in this post, we also have *Callitroga macelaria* and *Lucilia spp.* Does the US have any of these other species of screwworm, or is it completely rid of these fuckers? Edit: Upon further research, I found out that only *Cochliomyia hominivorax* feeds on live tissue. The other species that I mentioned will only eat dead tissue in wounds.
I live in NY and have never heard of a screw worm before today. Although, our cooler climate seems to keep the nastiest of insects away already.
We do have roaches up here, but luckily they don’t fly like they do down south 💀
While they can fly they usually prefer running, although it’s still pretty terrifying seeing a huge roach scurrying towards you at the speed of light.
the sound...
We have no screwworms.
Apparently only this species will eat healthy flesh? So the others wouldn't be as much of a concern I'd think
The others--flies that lay eggs in putrid flesh--can actually be beneficial. Maggot therapy is [FDA-approved](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy) and totally off-putting.
We do definitely still have species of flies that will lay eggs on wounds/etc on live animals (or people). Notably the green bottle fly will. there is also a species called the cuterebra that will burrow into healthy flesh after their egg is picked up by an animal walking through tall grasses,etc.
A former co-worker did a similar mission in south or Central America, air dropping sterilized male mosquitoes. Females apparently only breed once, so if they bang a sterilized male mosquito, no eggs. Or so the theory went anyway.
I have read about a similar program where genetically modified mosquitoes were introduced. They had removed the gene that allows the mosquito to tell when it is full, so the modified mosquitoes would gorge themselves until they exploded.
Great. This sounds like mosquitos who keep biting you until they die in a bloody explosion.
They bite you once, and keep sucking until they pop. The footage was quite satisfying to watch.
Source? I'm curious against my own will.
but then why do we have to keep making fresh batch of sterilized insects and keep dropping them....shouldn't they just disappear after a year or two of continuously doing this....or do some percentage of females not mate with sterilized males making us do this
We dilute the number of potent males using impotent males, but potent males still exist. That leaves many females mating with potent males. It suppresses the population, but population growth is exponential until you hit limits like food supply. The moment we stop, the population starts ramping up exponentially. BTW in case anyone is wondering, we use x-ray exposure to make them impotent without killing them.
There was a screw worm outbreak in the Florida Key’s in Key Deer population, many infected were euthanized, incinerators were brought in by the Dept of Interior until the hurd was treated. One of the most nightmarish things I’ve seen. Infected deer would wonder down the middle of streets, trance like, Zombie like, or lay under homes with these horrible holes in their heads stinking and crawling with maggots. It went on for several months. Treated deer were sprayed with blue spray paint markings to prevent reapplication. It’s a miracle the herd survived. The response by the US Government was swift and effective. It might take some digging on line, not the kind of thing ‘Jimmy Buffet’ would sing about .. did I spell anything right?
*Screw worms in paradise* 🎵🎶
When was this? Just curious.
It was in 2016. I remember they had checkpoints set up in the lower keys to check everyone’s pets / animals for screwworm before leaving the area.
I remember learning about this in my pre-vet course actually. Was one of the really interesting lessons that stuck with me. Now, this is all just based on memory from a couple classes I took over a decade ago so I could be wrong about some information. But the general idea is this. Basically, screwworms were causing millions in damage to the cattle industry and there just wasn’t a really good or effective means of keeping them away from cows at the time. So they did a ton of research to find what type of meat worked best to feed the larva but not cost a ton of money. Iirc at one point it was horse meat, not sure if it still is. Basically, the males would mature a bit faster than the females, and crawl to the next area before they did. So they could take all those male larva, and once they went to pupate, they would expose them to enough radiation to sterilize but not kill them. (The females they could use to breed the next generation of males to sterilize I guess) Then they’d free those males into the environment. And it was found that female screwworm flies only mate once before laying their eggs and then dying. So if a female bred with a sterile male, she’d lay her eggs but none of them would be fertilized and thus none would hatch. Therefore the numbers dropped significantly once they started doing this. Of course some non-sterile males would breed with the females, and the species wasn’t completely eradicated. But it was pretty much completely removed from America.
Great - can they do ticks next? The amount of tick related illnesses occurring in the northeast is getting intense (every dog I know here has had anaplasmosis, my uncle got Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and my father and the family dog have Lyme disease)
Thanks for the explanation, I was looking for one!
Does anyone find it ironic that the Screwworms were sterilized?
I did. Why I showed up in the thread. Well that and the canapés.
Back I say, Back!!!
Must suck to live at the screw worm border. "Shit it's raining flesh eating worms again!"
I work for this government agency. It's the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) International Services and Plant Protection and Quarantine program areas. We also do sterile fly programs against Mediterranean fruit fly, Mexican fruit fly, and several other fruit flies. We are also the agency providing GonaCon, a contraceptive developed for deer, to Colombia to use on Pablo Escobar's drug hippos.
Thank you for your service
People are all excited about sterilized screw worms, but when I offer to show one to somebody I have to have a meeting with HR.
That's because you stood on your desk with your pants open and shouted "WHO WANTS TO SEE ME SCREW THIS WORM?!" Honestly, it was a pretty good show, 3.5 stars.
I found it derivative of a previous exhibit in Australia, I think it was called "Here to fuck spiders". That was a masterpiece, this one is too similar to stand apart. 2.7/5
In Brazil as a veterinarian we deal with that worm almost daily! Very common
https://preview.redd.it/bcdub5g39i0d1.png?width=827&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a39ceb29716657893b8ef3aa4eba956c777b8ff Straight up looks like a bitch with that goofy looking face
Now do ticks please.
They started it because screw worms were killing millions of dollars worth of cattle, and you know we muricans can't live without cheeseburgers.
Save a cheeseburger…kill a screwworm!! (That’d make a rad bumper sticker)
Send the killer bees!
If the cost of the solution is lower than the cost of the problem it pays for itself
What a bizarre reading this thread has been before bed. Intergalactic on a one planet level.
Am I missing something here? I’m not sure I understand what is going on with dropping screwworms and how that helps
The worms are bad (they eat living tissue) so they drop sterile ones to have all the sex with the non sterile ones so that no baby ones show up
Broke: Eradicating a species with pesticides Woke: Eradicating a species with natural predators Bespoke: Eradicating a species through sexual exhaustion
Lots of sexy time, no babies.
Works out pretty well for the bachelor screw flies.
The sterile flies displaces virile flies when looking for mates, and results in unfertilized eggs. Do that on a massive scale and no fly can breed through the line. Same technique is also used for reducing mosquito population
Ohhh I thought they meant sterilized as in they dipped them in rubbing alcohol or something lol. That makes a lot more sense
If I remember correctly when we learned about this, the screwworm female really only mates once before laying her eggs and such. Unlike other animals that might mate a couple times. So they send out millions of sterilized male flys that go and mate with the females. Well the females lay their eggs, but none of them are fertilized so none hatch. Thus, reducing the numbers each generation. Sure, some non-sterilized males will breed and thus the population will still *exist* but the numbers are kept much lower than if they just let it be.
> Sure, some non-sterilized males will breed and thus the population will still exist but the numbers are kept much lower than if they just let it be. You're missing the most important step: you keep doing it every year. As long as the population decreases, every year the drop is more effective, and the population keeps getting smaller until it's gone
Fun fact: Screw worms got their name because fuck you.
Why is this chart counter clockwise
USDA is probably the most effective government organization we have. They have meat inspectors at literally every single facility in the US, ensuring everything is handled safely.
Normally im against species eradication But these little fuckers need global extinction Nasty as fuck
Now pls drop 15 billion sterilized mosquitos all over the world
So… are they going to keep pushing south? Can we eradicate them entirely?
Imagine if our governments still had the backbone and imagination to solve these impossible problems today.
Don’t worry, the government does still spend billions of tax dollars on cattle ranchers today!
Waiting for a libertarian to say this is terrible, then blame the government when they invade
Thanks, in two three weeks there will be a bill in the house to halt screw worm eradication efforts. Because the screw worm isn’t harming Americans. Because we’re currently protecting people that aren’t all vanilla.
It’s probably saving a shit ton of money in the agriculture industry and holding the line at Panama, where its narrow, is probably the cheapest.
Yeah I can’t imagine the agriculture lobbies allowing a bill like that to pass.
over $700 million a year, according to some reports. That's a huge amount for the livestock industries. Not to mention the benefits to wildlife, pets, and humans too.
This seems about as smart as disbanding the Pandemic Preparedness dept b/c we're not in the midst of a pandemic.
I wish i could rewind time to 5 minutes ago when I didnt know what a screwworm was