The US has reportedly drawn up plans to breed billions of flies over Mexico in an attempt to eradicate a vicious variety of flesh-eating maggot.

The move comes as the New World Screwworm fly larvae continues to cause chaos as it infiltrates the US beef industry, affecting wider wildlife, pets and, in rare cases, humans.

According to scientists, the new batches of male sterilised maggots will be dumped over the South American nation and the US state of Texas in a bid to eradicate the vicious variety of flesh-eating larvae.

The US Department of Agriculture is said the male flies, which measure slightly larger than the average housefly, will be sterilised with radiation before being released.

The strategy, set out by scientists, will force the female screwworms to breed with the newly sterilised males.

The flesh-eating variety of the screwworm maggots were eradicated from the US in 1966, but the creatures appear to me making a comeback.

  • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
    0·
    12 hours ago

    I’m not saying they didn’t do damage, but did they cut funding for this? There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that. There was an outbreak in Florida in 2016 before the 2022 outbreak

    No concrete reason for the northward spread has been given, and Dr. Chancey said it is likely “multifactorial.” She noted that surveillance of NWS is limited in hard-to-reach areas across Central America, and livestock often are transported through unmonitored or insufficient checkpoints.