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Researchers have solved Alaska ’s " snake worm " mystery after discovering a new species of fungus - eating fly whose juvenile band together and slither around like a long , gray snake .
The snake worm mystery begin more than 16 years ago in the summer of 2007 , when Ester occupant Maggie Billington spot G of midget , wormlike larvae crawling across a road in a long line of reasoning .
Snake worm gnat larvae crossing a road in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Billington was a volunteer at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks at the time , so she documented the bizarre sighting and brought pic and samples toDerek Sikes , the museum ’s curator of worm .
" I figured they must be fly larvae but had never heard of this snakeworm phenomenon , " Sikes said in astatement . " I was vex . This was all an X - Files showcase for me . "
Sikes and his fellow worker have now identified the larvae in a fresh work published Dec. 30 in the journalIntegrative Systematics : Stuttgart contribution to Natural story . The coinage , which they ’ve make Sciara serpens , is one of several scarcely studied flies in which the larva appear to mimic ophidian .
Thousands of gnat larvae move together like a snake in Ester, Alaska.
The investigator speculated that these larvae take the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe of a snake to scare off razz and other would - be predators or to preserve moisture on ironic ground by crawling over one another in a line .
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The new species belongs to the Sciaridae fly family , commonly called fungus gnats because they feed on disintegrate constitutive issue . Many fly front are surd to state aside in their adolescent life level , so Sikes cared for larvae collected from a second snake in the grass louse sighting in 2007 until they morphed into their dark - winged fly conformation .
The Alaskan fungus gnat raise by Sikes appear to most nearly resemble a European gnat calledSciara mirabilis , rather than previously identified North American species reported in Maryland and Arkansas .
But it was n’t until 2021 that the squad confirmed the gnat was a species Modern to skill . wind authorThalles Pereira , an insect investigator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North , examined the virile gnats ' genital organ under a sinewy microscope and found noteworthy difference in the shape , compared with those of its European relative .
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While it might seem odd for an Alaskan gnat to have more in coarse with gnats in Europe than with its fellow North American species , the study author noted that this follows a form among other insect in Alaska , such as grasshoppers and beetle , and probably dates back to thePleistocene(2.6 million to 11,700 years ago ) . During that clock time , Alaska was connected to Europe and Asia via theBering Land Bridge , allowinginsects to dispersefrom easterly Siberia to Alaska while giant ice sheet blocked off the rest of North America .
Though Sikes and his squad were able to identify the mintage behind the Snake River worm phenomenon , scientists still have a lot of piece of work to do to in full realize these fungus gnats and their rum larvae habits .
Furthermore , Sikes and other snake worm witnesses reported seeing beetles running alongside the larva , which could also be investigated . The beetles may fertilise on the jejune flies , but when Sikes put them together in a science lab , the beetle mostly ignored the larvae , concord to the study .
