mealybugs

In recent years, officials have had to contend with Burmese pythons, which prey on native species; Gambian pouched rats, which can grow to the size of a cat and wreak havoc on crops; and pink hibiscus mealybugs, which inject toxic venom into plants.

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Their plants were scrawny, and the mealybugs that fed on them tended to be scrawny as well.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

Even more important, the experiments showed that the wasps could lay eggs only in the cassava mealybugs.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

A few months after the drops, they began to comb through the fields to see how fast the wasp was spreading and how the mealybugs were faring.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

Known as cassava mealybugs, they are one of the many plant-eating parasites, tuned to the narrow frequency of their host-plant species.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

Since they needed cuttings to replant their fields, and none of their cuttings was free of the mealybugs, the farmers lost the crops for years to come.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

Cassava mealybugs are all female, and a single female can lay eight hundred eggs in its microscopic lifetime.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

We put mealybugs on one plant, and we released the wasps from a corner of the field.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

So the plants were really thriving for several hundred years until somebody brought in mealybugs.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009

He sent mealybugs and cassava plants from Africa to the same quarantine, where scientists were able to get the wasp to lay its eggs in them.

Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009