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IIRC, there's some parasite that makes the host (some species of insects) climb up plants, as high as possible, so that it can be eaten by birds and other anima
by TrackerFF 2y ago
IIRC, there's some parasite that makes the host (some species of insects) climb up plants, as high as possible, so that it can be eaten by birds and other animals.
So that the parasite can reproduce inside the new host, and spread further.
- doubleg72 2y agoYes, you recall correctly.
- dingnuts 2y agoYes, the game and TV show The Last of Us made cordyceps a fairly well known genus
- TeaBrain 2y agoCordyceps are also a major plot device in the novel Cold Storage, which is being developed into a film.
- griffzhowl 2y agoCordyceps is a bit different in that it makes the host insect clamp down on a branch or twig until death so that when the fruiting body grows out of the host, its spores are spread through the air, where it can infect similar insects. What OP is talking about sounds more like the lancet liver fluke, which has a stage of its lifecycle inside an ant and a stage inside a grazing animal, so it makes an infected ant climb to the top of a grass stalk. Amazingly, the ants only do this from dusk till dawn, resuming their normal activities if they haven't been eaten by dawn. The rationale seems to be that being exposed to the hot sun during the day could quickly kill the ant along with its passenger flukes
- gaoryrt 2y ago- Cordyceps has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine in the belief it can be used to treat diseases [0] I think every Chinese person has heard of it since they were kids. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps