The female screw worm, a serious warm-country cattle pest, mates only once. Dr. A. W. Lindquist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture told a Tampa meeting of entomologists how this determined monogamy may be the screw worm's undoing.
The adult females, which are ordinary-looking flies, lay eggs on wounds or scratches in the hide of cattle; the larvae that hatch burrow into the flesh, sometimes eating the poor beasts alive. Since screw worms breed in wild animals as well as tame ones, they are almost immune to extermination.
After pondering the problem, Entomologist E.F. Knipling, U.S.D.A., had...
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