September 13, 2016
Oh my! The business of the "Five Second Rule" that Hettie Lynn Herties reported days ago just made it to TV. Bacteria will attack immediately, of course. We just made up the five second rule to make us think it was okay to eat something that we'd dropped on the floor. What an opening line. Rushing.. more later.
My friend, Johnny Gunn, is moving from his apartment in a couple of weeks. My intention was to help him cull through his 'stuff' and make the move go smoothly. We chatted. We did not cull.
I told him the story of the phorid fly. The wonders of the world are many. This tiny fly (about the size of the head of a pin) survives by the female laying eggs in the joints of Texas fire ants. The ants are a hundred times the size of the fly and have stingers and pincers and can also bite! The little fly has to negotiate a flight into the jaws of death to lay her eggs. She has a hundred eggs to deposit. She deftly flies through the fire ants' articulated bodies and is able to lay her eggs on the place where an ant's leg joins its body. The egg then inserts itself into the body of the ant, becoming a larva. It makes its way to the ant's brain, effectively taking control of the ant. It guides the ant out of the nest and in two weeks time has consumed the ant from the inside and emerges as a brand new phorid fly.
More information about tiny flies than you may have expected.
Tuesday night.. September 13, 2016
michaelsheehan
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