WATERY GRAVES
Crabs (hemigrapus crenulatus) and grasshoppers are two additional species affected by mind-altering parasites; both suffer from “brainwashing” by parasites requiring hosts to propagate themselves.
The case of crabs has been discovered in New Zealand, where they’re infected with the parasitic worm, helminthes. The parasites enter through the soft joints of the crab and cause the crab’s risk taking behavior to spike dramatically, to the point that the crab wanders from its hiding place during low tide and is in turn eaten by sea birds (the primary host for the helminthes). http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=1FAFBBA0566B35CBB21
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Grasshoppers will drown themselves under the control of spinochordodes tellinii, a hairworm. After the hairworm overwhelms the grasshopper’s brain with mind-altering chemicals, the insect is driven to drown itself in the nearest body of water, often a pool or pond. Once the grasshopper or cricket is in the water, it’s left to die by the hairworm that then seeks out mates in their ideal mating environment. The cycle then begins again. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7927
What if one of these parasites took roost in humans? Would their toxins work on the human mind or other mammals as they do in crabs or grasshoppers?
April 25th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
My girlfriend’s a big bug buff and she actually keeps a bunch of crickets in the back office of my autoshop. She showed me an article about this stuff a little while ago that creeped me out since I hear the damn things all the time. This was the article she showed me: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-02/whats-really-swimming-pools I haven’t felt right about going into our pool since… though you can do a lot of treatments in your pool to help kill those bugs.