Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!isaak
From: isaak@imagen.com (mark isaak)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Mutant flies
Summary: screwworm flies?
Message-ID: <1991May27.020638.27148@imagen.com>
Date: 27 May 91 02:06:38 GMT
References: <19490@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@imagen.com
Organization: imagen
Lines: 27

In article <19490@csli.Stanford.EDU> cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) writes:
>I read recently on some group (maybe this one?) that there is a recently-
>appeared type of fly that lays eggs in living tissue, and the maggots eat
>the tissue, with often-fatal results.  Apparently it's enough of a threat
>that there's an international effort to wipe out the flies before they 
>spread.  

This sounds like the screwworm fly, native to Mexico/southern USA.
It lays eggs in open wounds, and the larvae feed on the living
tissue.  It used to be the bane of cattle ranchers, who would lose
thousands of head a year to them, and it killed a dozen or so
people per year, too.

Some time ago (1960's?), it was eradicated in some areas and
brought under control in others by using the biological control
measure of releasing sterile males.  I believe there are some
joint US-Mexico plans to try to eradicate them completely by
extending this treatment further and further south.

The flies are not new.  What's new is that they have now been
accidentally imported to Africa (Lybia, if I remember right),
where they threaten humans, livestock, and native mammals alike.
That's probably the focus of the international effort you heard
about.
-- 
Mark Isaak    imagen!isaak@decwrl.dec.com  or  {decwrl,sun}!imagen!isaak
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." - Nietzsche