{"id":392976,"date":"2026-07-31T03:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T03:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/392976\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T03:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T03:42:12","slug":"scientists-are-studying-scents-to-develop-better-new-world-screwworm-traps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/392976\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists are studying scents to develop better New World Screwworm traps"},"content":{"rendered":"

KERRVILLE, Texas \u2014 Inside a federal research lab in Kerrville, a container of aging beef liver is helping scientists search for a better way to detect and fight New World screwworm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is aged about three days right now. We\u2019ll age it up to seven days, and then, as you can imagine, it will get rather ripe,\u201d said Paul Hickner, an ecologist with the Agricultural Research Service at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory.<\/p>\n

That powerful odor may hold the key to developing a more effective lure for the parasite.<\/p>\n

\"Beef<\/p>\n

Beef liver is being aged and studied to develop more specific lures for New World Screwworm (SBG San Antonio)<\/p>\n

New World screwworm flies are attracted to open wounds, including the fresh navels of newborn calves. The flies lay eggs in those wounds, and the larvae that hatch feed on living tissue.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the lab are now trying to identify the individual chemicals that make those odors so attractive to the flies.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably well over 100 chemicals make up that smell, so we\u2019re trying to identify every one of those,\u201d Hickner said.<\/p>\n

The goal is to recreate the most effective combination of those chemicals in a new lure that could help traps catch more New World screwworm flies.<\/p>\n

Traps have been used in the fight against screwworm for decades. Lures draw flies onto sticky surfaces, allowing officials to collect them and determine whether the pest is present in an area.<\/p>\n

Historic photos from the Kerrville laboratory show the scale of those efforts. One structure served as an oversized trap, collecting a massive pile of flies.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An old photo at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory shows a pile of flies collected in a trap<\/p>\n

But the lures currently in use have a major limitation: They attract many different species.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have old lures that work okay. But they attract screwworm as well as every other blowfly that\u2019s out there,\u201d said Kim Lohmeyer, director of the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Researchers want to develop a lure that specifically targets female New World screwworm flies, which lay eggs in animals\u2019 wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can use that as a surveillance tool to see how many of these flies are out there in the environment, but also to pull those breeding females out of the environment,\u201d Lohmeyer said.<\/p>\n

A more precise lure could help scientists detect the pest faster while also removing reproductive females from the environment.<\/p>\n

For now, researchers must sort through thousands of flies that may be collected in a single trap.<\/p>\n

\"Flies<\/p>\n

Flies are sorted in the lab to determine if any could be New World Screwworm or sterile flies dispersed to help stop the spread (SBG San Antonio)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is from one trap \u2014 like two days in the field,\u201d Zamira Yusseff, another scientist at the facility, said while showing us the volume of insects collected. There are thousands of flies sitting in containers.<\/p>\n

She is one of the experts trained to identify both the adult flies and their larvae, often the first one people call when they think they’ve discovered a screwworm.<\/p>\n

Each fly is brought back to the laboratory for her review, and experts count, sort, and examine the fly and larva for the physical characteristics of New World screwworm.<\/p>\n

Zamira Yusseff is one of the experts trained to identify both the adult flies and their larvae.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at these two flies. They are kind of bluish, three lines on the thorax, a yellow face… From here, you wouldn\u2019t know,\u201d Yusseff said, showing us a screwworm fly and a secondary screwworm fly side by side. <\/p>\n

The characteristics are similar, but only one is causing the destruction. Yusseff says it’s imperative to make sure the real parasite is being identified and tracked.<\/p>\n

That time-consuming identification process is another reason researchers say a screwworm-specific lure would make a difference.<\/p>\n

\"Flies<\/p>\n

Flies are sorted in the lab to determine if any could be New World Screwworm or sterile flies dispersed to help stop the spread (SBG San Antonio)<\/p>\n

The team is also working to design traps that do not rely on glue. Sticky surfaces can damage the flies and make it more difficult to separate and preserve them for testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesign a trap that attracts the flies, but then we can just separate the flies without glue,\u201d Yusseff said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s one of the things that we are working on too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Kerrville, researchers isolate and test the chemicals they believe are most likely to attract screwworm flies. The most promising combinations will eventually be tested on New World screwworm flies at a research site in Panama.<\/p>\n

Until scientists develop a more precise lure, teams at the Kerrville laboratory will continue sorting through thousands of insects and examining any suspected New World screwworm samples sent to the lab.<\/p>\n

The traps are one part of a larger effort to stop the pest from spreading. Sterile flies are also released in targeted areas to disrupt reproduction and reduce the wild screwworm population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KERRVILLE, Texas \u2014 Inside a federal research lab in Kerrville, a container of aging beef liver is helping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-392976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}