The University of Texas at Arlington is coordinating a federally funded effort to detect and stop the spread of New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite threatening livestock across Texas and other states. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding the more than $4.5 million project.
At the center of the project is an AI-powered "smart trap" capable of distinguishing wild screwworm flies from sterile ones and female flies from males. Because wild female flies are responsible for spreading infected larvae, the trap selectively captures them, enabling earlier detection of outbreaks. The technology builds on previous AI-based fruit fly trap research by Shouyi Wang, associate professor at UTA, who expects to have a smart-trap prototype ready by next spring.
"This project moves screwworm surveillance beyond today's 'collect first, sort later' trapping methods to AI-driven precision capture," Dr. Wang said. "The smart trap is designed to recognize and selectively retain targeted wild screwworm flies, especially high-risk females, while releasing sterile flies and non-target insects back into the environment. Connected through a smart-trap network, each detection can feed real-time alerts, location-based tracking and predictive risk maps that provide the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) with timely, actionable information for faster, more targeted responses."
Current screwworm traps capture insects indiscriminately, requiring extensive manual sorting and slowing the process of confirming whether the screwworm is present. That approach can also interfere with an existing federal program that releases sterile flies to suppress wild screwworm populations, since standard traps can't distinguish sterile flies from wild flies.
New World screwworm was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 1966 but has recently reemerged, with more than 40 confirmed animal cases reported as of Aug. 3, most of them in Texas, according to the USDA's case dashboard. The parasite lays eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes of warm-blooded animals; left untreated, infections can be fatal. UTA's system is designed to address both problems by selectively targeting high-risk flies while reducing interference with sterile-fly release programs.
UTA's project was one of 40 selected nationwide as part of roughly $105 million in USDA funding. UTA will lead overall project coordination and system integration, bringing together a multidisciplinary team of university, industry, government and international partners to move the technology from research prototypes to a field-ready system that can support USDA's APHIS and livestock producers. The project runs through June 2028, with field work taking place across multiple states, including Texas, and in affected regions of Mexico.
