So, in my efforts to waste time by labeling my posts, I created the label "zombies" because, hell, it's funny and it actually applied to one whole post. Never did I dream I would get to use it again. Guess what, I get to use it again.
I worked in Gulf Coast Texas for a while. It's somewhat like living in America's armpit and part of the pleasure is dealing with invasive fire ants. Why can't THEY be endangered?? These ants can skeletonize a trapped small animal in 12 hours and can make a calm person rip off all their clothes and run screaming across the prairie. They are steadily spreading their range across the US and have made it as far north as at least Virginia. They are murder on ground nesting birds like quail and prairie chickens and can even do serious damage to fawns and other mammals who may not be able to rise and run quickly away. Hopes of eradication: slim to none.
But there is one critter who may subdue these rapacious little invaders. Phorid flies (left, hovering above fire ant) have been released with some succes in FL and now TX. These defenders of the realm inject their eggs into the ants and the larvae move to the ant's head as they develop. There, they devour its brain and then gain control of the body (I swear this is true, nature is freaking awesome). They make the body walk away from the other ants into a dark, damp location where they can then pop the ant's head off without fear of attack (right) and emerge.
While this will not make fire ants go away, the ants live in holy terror of having their heads drop off. Thus their activites are much subdued (wouldn't yours be??) and they are far more inclined to stay underground and leave things the $*@& alone.
So I say hooray for zombie-making flies -- I don't know about you, but I've been swarmed by fire ants and it is NOT an experience I care to repeat. I believe that new curse words were invented at that time. I don't condone enjoyment in animal pain or suffering, but you know what? I'd pay money to watch the heads of fire ants pop off after their brains are devoured. So there.
I'm always looking for my next favourite book, so I have to introduce you to Wade Davis. He is an ethnobotanist (translation: anthropology mated with botany and the result is this esoteric but fascinating field of study) with a gift for writing. My first meeting with him was on the pages of "The Serpent and the Rainbow" where he travels to Haiti to investigate the legend of the zombie (oh yes, they DO exist and you'll just have to read the book to find out how). My mother gave me the book and I started it, thinking I'd be bored silly (despite my love of biology, botany leaves me noticeably glassy-eyed) -- instead, I was sucked in and couldn't put it down. Part adventure tale, part forensic investigation, and part just-plain-meeting-really-interesting-authentic-people, his travels with voodoo left me hungry for more.
So I hit up another (also a gift from mom, she has a knack for finding these things for me) that I just finished, this time the considerably more sizeable both in topic and doorstop quality "One River." Davis tells not only of his own mid-70's graduate project in the Amazon studying coca and its origins, but also his professor's exploits in the 40's and 50's with hallucinogenic plants and wild rubber. It did take me a loooooooooooooooooooong time to read it (and I'm a pretty fast reader), but it was simply fascinating and like most naturalist/adventure books, made me long for a good adventure, which I haven't had in years!
Interesting side note: Davis' professor, Richard Evans Schultes, supposedly had a lab where he taught at Harvard where he assigned his students to sample a hallucinogenic plant of choice and report on the results. All I have to say is: where was THAT class when I was an undergrad????!
Even if you don't think you're into reading biology books or books about plants, I still highly recommend. Davis makes the story flow so despite the fact that he is educating you, it doesn't hurt one bit. And it keeps me in perspective, reminding me that there is a whole world out there full of places that each have their own unique beauty and challenges, each with their own peoples and flora and fauna and rivers and seasons. I'm only a tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny piece in all of that and somehow, that keeps me grounded....
So wander on -- right to your local library and check it out!
But there is one critter who may subdue these rapacious little invaders. Phorid flies (left, hovering above fire ant) have been released with some succes in FL and now TX. These defenders of the realm inject their eggs into the ants and the larvae move to the ant's head as they develop. There, they devour its brain and then gain control of the body (I swear this is true, nature is freaking awesome). They make the body walk away from the other ants into a dark, damp location where they can then pop the ant's head off without fear of attack (right) and emerge.
While this will not make fire ants go away, the ants live in holy terror of having their heads drop off. Thus their activites are much subdued (wouldn't yours be??) and they are far more inclined to stay underground and leave things the $*@& alone.
