By KiddieDaily Editors · 2026-06-29 · 2 min read · 1 source

Screwworm could be the first species targeted by an 'extinction drive'

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In a few cases, the extinction of a species would be a good thing.

That’s a controversial opinion, but I do think the world would be better off, for instance, without malaria-spreading mosquitoes. We now have the genetic technology to achieve this, in the form of extinction drives – more accurately called gene drives – that can defy evolution and spread harmful traits throughout a population. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this technology will be deployed against malaria-carrying mosquitoes any time soon.

Instead, Kevin Esvelt at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the biologist who created the first CRISPR-based gene drive, thinks the screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax) will be the first in line. A whole new world of tiny beings challenges fundamental ideas of life “The one that I would bet on is the New World screwworm, that nasty bot fly that’s now been found a couple times in Texas,” says Esvelt. “It’s even more hated than malaria mosquitoes, if you can believe that.” Screwworm flies lay their eggs in wounds on mammals and sometimes birds.

When the larvae hatch, they burrow into the flesh of their host and start eating it alive. As a wound expands, more eggs may be laid in it. If they aren’t removed, the larvae can cause serious injuries and pain, and will eventually kill the host.

They are a huge problem for livestock farmers, not to mention people who find they have screwworms twisting into their flesh. The screwworm used to be found throughout much of the Americas. It was eliminated from North America and Central America in the 1960s but has remained a major problem throughout much of South America.

The latest on what’s new in science and why it matters each day. The key to its elimination in North America was the so-called sterile-insect technique. This relies on the fact that female screwworms mate only once, so if the male they mate with is sterile, they won’t produce any offspring.

So, if you zap screwworms with radiation to sterilise them and release enough to outnumber the wild ones, you can wipe out populations locally. The downside of the sterile-insect technique that it is expensive, as are newer versions of the technique that rely on genetic modification rather than radiation. That’s why it has never been attempted in South America.

So even if the US and Mexico manage to eliminate the screwworm again, this won’t help people or animals on that continent.

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