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Sterile Flies vs. the Screwworm, Middle school

A sterile screwworm fly on the window of a plane flying over Texas near the Mexico border

The screwworm is a fly. Its babies, called larvae, eat the living flesh of animals like cows and deer. Scientists want to get rid of every screwworm fly in the United States.

Could releasing millions more screwworm flies help get rid of screwworm flies?

Sterile flies beat a flesh-eating fly

The screwworm is a fly whose babies eat living animals. In 2026, the fly is back in Texas for the first time in decades. Years ago, scientists wiped out the fly in the United States by releasing millions of male flies that could not make babies. Now USDA is releasing sterile flies in Texas again.

A bunch of freshly pulled red radishes lying on garden soil
A radish is a root you can eat. Radish comes from the same Latin word rādīx.

Your word of the day is

ih-RAD-ih-kayt

e-outfrom Latin ē-
radic-rootfrom Latin rādīx
-atemakes the word an actionfrom Latin -ātus

To get rid of something completely.

A sterile screwworm fly on a plane window high above Texas

Scientists released male screwworm flies that can’t make babies.

A female screwworm fly mates only once in her life. How does that help the sterile males?

Containers packed with about 2 million sterile screwworm flies, ready to load onto a release plane

Scientists released far more sterile screwworm males than there were wild males.

Why did scientists need so many more sterile screwworm males than wild males?

View from a camera on the outside of a plane as it starts releasing sterile screwworm flies over Texas near the Mexico border

Screwworms still live in Mexico, Central America and South America.

How could screwworms get back into Texas after decades away?

Video of cows grazing in a sunny green pasture

The early screwworm research cost about $250,000. Getting rid of the screwworm saved ranchers over $200 million a year in the 1950s.

Each year, ranchers saved about ____ times what the screwworm research cost.

A narrow window inside a plane shows sterile screwworm flies entering the release chute, with Texas land passing below

Scientists release the same number of sterile males every generation.

Why do sterile flies work better and better as the wild screwworm flies get fewer?

A twin-propeller plane fitted with chutes for releasing sterile screwworm flies, flying back to its base in Edinburg, Texas

Lesson complete

Today’s word

eradicate

ih-RAD-ih-kayt

To get rid of something completely, roots and all.

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Sources
  1. Edward F. Knipling, USDA, Golden Goose Award profile, 2016
  2. Roy Melvin and Raymond C. Bushland, USDA, 1936 and 1940, as described in Baumhover, 2002
  3. USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, with the Texas Animal Health Commission, USDA, June 3, 2026 and June 5, 2026
  4. COPEG, run jointly by USDA and Panama’s Ministry of Agriculture Development, USDA sterile fly production page
  5. R. Henry, Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2019
  6. USDA National Agricultural Library, “STOP Screwworms” exhibit
  7. USDA APHIS, Animal Health Officials Respond to Second Detection of New World Screwworm in the United States, June 5, 2026
  8. USDA APHIS, New World screwworm, Using sterile insect technique, Sterile fly production and dispersal, Screwworm.gov and Current status
  9. Vision and Change core concepts and competencies, as summarized in Brownell and others, CBE Life Sciences Education, 2014
  10. Word origins from Dictionary.com: eradicate, radical, radish, radicle, voracious, carnivore, Homo sapiens
  11. Spanish and French words from Wiktionary: eradicate, radix