Finally, a fly that's no pest

At it's earliest convenience, the General Assembly should pause from twiddling its collective thumbs over the state's transportation woes and vote to dump the tiger swallowtail as the official state insect.

The swallowtail is a butterfly, and everybody likes butterflies. They're free and all that. But, at this critical juncture in our great state's history, we don't need an official insect that makes us go "Awww." We need something that makes us go "Yesss!"

The phorid fly, to be exact.

Why? you may ask. Let us recall a recent Pilot story about the presence of fire ants in eight public parks in Hampton Roads. This is the critical juncture of which we speak.

Some readers snickered at such a fuss over a trifling little ant. Obviously, they've never been bitten by one.

Folks who've lived deeper in the South quickly recognized the import of the story. Bugdom offers quite a gallery of ghouls: blood-sucking ticks, roaches big enough to tip over fridges, termites that can crumble the mightiest of McMansions.

But they are mere irritants compared to the howl-inducing bite of fire ants. If Noah had encountered one on the ark, he would have squished it flat, then stomped off angrily to find and flatten its mate.

Fortunately, the invasion of fire ants is in its early stages here. And, fortunately, there are non-nuclear weapons at our disposal.

In recent years, entomologists - specifically, the Tony Sopranos of entomologists - have been experimenting with crisp, clean ways to rub out fire ants.

Nothing quite seems to pack the pow of the pinhead-size phorid fly, which has the odd habit of laying its eggs in fire ants. As the larvae grow in their host, they eat their way out until - plop! - off comes the ant's head and a swarm of new flies is born.

The flies have been used successfully in several states. And, no, they do not attack other insects or mammals. (In Florida, the legislature gamely served as a control group. No discernible changes were noticed in their level of brain activity.)

To some of you, this remedy may seem ghastly, even cruel.

Obviously, you've never been bitten by a fire ant.