Ars Technica Article: Exotic Eye Worm Rapidly Invades US by Spreading from Testes of Fruit Flies
Exotic eye worm rapidly invades US by spreading from testes of fruit flies
By Beth Mole, August 14, 2024
In a battle of bear versus exotic eye worm, the eye worm wins—and that’s bad news for all of us.
Researchers on Wednesday reported the first known infection of an exotic eye worm in a black bear in the US, which was killed in Pennsylvania in November 2023. The bear had at least 13 adult parasitic worms pulled from its eyes, and the researchers identified them as the invasive, potentially blinding species Thelazia callipaeda, which was only first detected in the US in 2020.