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Similarly, there is a flatworm parasite that takes over a snail's mind, turns its eyes into colourful pulsating beacons to attract predator birds to eat it, par
by personjerry 5y ago
Similarly, there is a flatworm parasite that takes over a snail's mind, turns its eyes into colourful pulsating beacons to attract predator birds to eat it, parasitizes the bird, and then leaves its eggs in the bird poop for more snails to eat later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_paradoxum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_paradoxum
National Geographic video (warning, kinda gross): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Go_LIz7kTok https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Go_LIz7kTok
- nielsbot 5y agoThere's also: - cordyceps fungi that cause ants to climb to high branches and clamp their jaws to them before dying so the fungus' can sprout out of their heads: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cordyceps... - Anomotaenia brevis: a tapeworm that causes ants to live unnaturally long lives and emulate the queen ant's pheromones causes the colony to expend energy feeding the infected ants at the expense of the rest of the colony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomotaenia_brevis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomotaenia_brevis And for another plain gross entry: a tongue-eating louse that eats and takes the place of a fish's tongue. I guess it gets to eat when the fish eats? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/tongue-eating-fish-parasites-never-cease-to-amaze https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/tongue-ea...
- ianmcgowan 5y agoMakes you wonder if some kind of CO2-loving parasite isn't infecting humanity...
- nielsbot 5y agoYou could consider human self-awareness a kind of parasite that feeds on convenience.
- ajuc 5y agoIt's called capitalism :)
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoWhen communism fell in East Germany, pollution actually dropped for a while as living standards rose, because a lot of inefficient coal plants were replaced.
- gruez 5y agoAre you suggesting that carbon emissions do not exist outside of countries that have private ownership of production?
- ComodoHacker 5y agoThese "chipization" conspiracies suddenly start looking more creepy. Imagine some controlled (or uncontrolled) infection indeed can cause humans to take some specific risky behaviors. For example, gambling or taking more credits.
- DyslexicAtheist 5y agoor some parasite that makes us believe everything is a system, spot patterns everywhere, and approach all "problems" with systems thinking, when reality is just chaos.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoReality being chaos would be systematic, too.
- eru 5y agoWheat has been pretty successful in domesticating humans, so far.
- DyslexicAtheist 5y agoTotally unrelated (or perhaps due to a parasitic conspiracy idk) Dave Aitel an infosec policy influencer just started a company by the name of cordyceps. First time I heard of it in nearly 50 years of my life was reading his twitter, now it pops up on this timeline few days later. https://twitter.com/daveaitel/status/1410308330808135691 https://twitter.com/daveaitel/status/1410308330808135691