Parasite Turns Bees Into Zombie-Like Creatures
NPR
Friday, October 31, 2014
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Biologists are reporting signs of a possible zombie apocalypse. Well, at least for the honeybee population. A parasite that has been turning bees on the West Coast into zombie-like creatures has started infecting bees in the East, and biologists are still puzzled as to how it all works.
Transcript
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
It's Halloween, so it's prime time to hear from a California biologist who studies an otherwise obscure subject.
JOHN HAFERNIK: From time to time, I give talks, and I call it The Flight of the Living Dead.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
John Hafernik of San Francisco State studies the zombie fly. It lays eggs inside a honeybee turning the bee into a zom-bee.
HAFERNIK: Flying out of their hives at night, a time when bees shouldn't be active, coming to lights and then flying around in a really disoriented kind of like zombie-like fashion.
MONTAGNE: The parasite was first observed on the West Coast during studies on declining bee populations. And now, there are zom-bee sightings as far east as Pennsylvania. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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