The U.S. government plans to open what amounts to a fly factory by the end of the year to breed millions of the insects in Texas near the border with Mexico as part of an effort to keep a flesh-eating parasite from infesting American cattle.
    • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
      9·
      2 days ago

      The parasite referred to is the larvae of the fly. They are breeding sterile male flies to mate with wild females, so that they dont end up laying eggs.

      Apparently they were already doing this in Panama for a long time and it successfully limited the range of the fly. The southern border is so much larger than Panama that I think it would be difficult to achieve the same effect

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yeah I’m hoping it does well. That is what they were looking into in other countries to use for mosquitos and such.

        It’s a much better plan than when Florida bred love-bugs and released them hoping they would eat the mosquitoes. The mosquitos stayed, and then they had love bugs splattered everywhere twice a year for probably 2 decades now. (I think they are slowly dying out though)

        • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          13 hours ago

          Thought I found a cool new fact, turns out to be a myth. :(

          In yet another sign of collapse, there were hardly any this past September.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2·
            12 hours ago

            I thought they bred them to increase populations, that’s funny though when I looked up the myths, DNA splicing to create new bugs haha, yeah that’s a bit beyond the times

            • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              11 hours ago

              They were so thick in past years that would have made sense! And yet no one has noticed that their populations have crashed.