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(Last updated 9/14/01)

 

RESEARCHER OFFERS $5,000 REWARD FOR WORM-INFECTED SLUG

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State University entomologist Parwinder Grewal wants to find Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita naturally occurring in North America.

Unless he and his colleagues can find such a native worm, they will have to prove to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the European species is safe to import for pest control, a task that might take many years.

Since 1999, Grewal has enlisted the help of people around North America, by offering a $5,000 reward to anyone who finds an infected slug.

Money for the reward comes from MicroBio Group Ltd. - the UK biotech company that supplied the P. hermaphrodita worms for Grewal's study.

So far, Grewal has received thousands of slugs in the mail, in response to advertisements he's placed in gardening magazines. But none of the slugs has contained this particular parasite.

Grewal requests that people collect live slugs and mail them to him in a box or plastic food container. Include a few fresh leaves for food, he said, and remember to poke holes in the container so the slugs can breathe.

Mail to Grewal care of the Slug Collection Project, Department of Entomology, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, Ohio 44691.

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Contact: Parwinder Grewal, (330) 263-3963; Grewal.4@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu