As the climate changes, some areas of the planet will be hotter and wetter, and all types of insects will move into these new territories... like Botflies.
Living in Texas, and growing up on a ranch, I was aware of screw worm flies on cattle. And later in life when I considered a vocational career in insect studies (actually fish studies in tropically zones of the world...) I decided against it after a course of study in college called parasitology. I find the idea of something living inside of me to be creepy... unacceptable.
But some biologists think that the concept of a botfly maggot buried in you face, taking YOUR DNA and making FLY DNA out of it to be fasinating. I was driving along listening to Radio Lab on NPR radio http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/ ....
Glad Somebody Likes Bugs...
Listen
Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne got all soft inside when he thought about how the botfly larva in his scalp was eating his tissue and turning it into a new organism. It was of him, like a child. His friend Sarah Rogerson was a little less charmed, and they both were surprised by the creature that ultimately emerged from his head. And Tom Eisner, professor of chemical ecology, loved bugs from earliest childhood, kept them in his room to keep him company when his family found themselves living in South America, bug paradise. He knew them well enough to classify them by how they smelled. These days, as he told Robert at the 92nd St Y, his subjects live for sometimes years, well-cared for in his lab, partners in his work decoding chemical signals to reach across the communication divide, trying to shorten the distance between coexisting organisms. photo by imnowl Jerry's book, Why Evolution Is True
If you are still interested in the topic, click on this link for more:
If you want to really get into the subject by being the organism that needs a host, I suggest you read "Host" by Stepenie Meyer, who is now famous for the vampire and werewolf series called "Twilight".
No comments:
Post a Comment