In 1950, Australia used a virus as a biological weapon against millions of rabbits; scientists just decoded how they fought back, using DNA from a rabbit that once belonged to Charles Darwin

In 1950, Australia turned a virus into a weapon. The myxoma virus was deliberately introduced to control the out-of-control rabbit population in the country, and it worked right away. According to Alves et al. in the Science study ‘Parallel Adaptation of Rabbit Populations to Myxoma Virus,’ the disease spread over 2,000 kilometers in less than three months, killing 99% of infected animals. Then Alves et al. note that the virus was illegally introduced in France in 1952 and reached the UK by 1953, again with devastating results in both countries. Then, quietly, evolution started pushing back.

The backstory: a pest of biblical proportions