A PERFECT Trojan horse has been discovered for luring entire colonies of troublesome ants and termites to their doom, without harming other insects, animals or people. The breakthrough could herald a new generation of green pesticides customised to kill the target pest and nothing else.
The covert agent is a fungus at what is known as the “pre-sporulitic” stage of its life cycle. At this stage it forms a mycelium, a structure from which spores eventually emerge. “It is a fine, cobwebby mass of filamentous cells,” says Paul Stamets, who has founded a company called Mycopesticide in Kamilche Point, Washington, to commercialise the biopesticide.…
