Friday, March 14, 2003

ANTS IN YER PANTS

Did you know there was a war on? Whilst Dubya is on an adventure over in Eye-rack, brother Jeb has a domestic battle to fight.

"red imported fire ants strip trees of their bark, short-circuit air conditioners and kill baby sea turtles and ground-nesting birds"

So, call in the cavalry! Or, in this case "one species of decapitating phorid fly".

"One of dozens of natural enemies of the South American fire ant, the fly was discovered in 1920 by Thomas Borgmeier, a Franciscan monk working in Rio de Janeiro. But no one knew how the minuscule fly -- just a millimeter long -- killed its prey...The female fly hovers over the ant, then swoops in to inject a torpedo-shaped egg into the ant's thorax -- or midsection -- in one-tenth of a second."

But, what about the possible side effects of intorducing the fly? Remember that Simpsons episode when Springfield gets overrun by bird eating lizards. The lizards eat pigeons - good. But, they eat every other bird and take over the town. It takes another natural predator to rid the place of the lizard, but they have to bring in chimps to deal with that predator. Fortunately the chimps freeze and die in winter.

Why not use Raid, like everyone else!

:: Posted by pete @ 13:49