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Wasp Larvae Feed on Zombie Roaches
TheUploader writes "The story leaves nothing to embellish: The wasp, Ampulex compressa, has evolved to inject a toxin into a specific part of a roach's brain, turning it into a zombie. The wasp then leads the zombie roach into the wasp's nest, lays eggs inside it, and waits for its young to hatch, who will then go on to do the same to more roaches."
Well the site appears to have been well and truly Slashdotted already. However, zombifying a creature for your own benefit isn't anything new.
I seem to recall there exists a paracite who's lifecycle consists of:
Be born in sheep shit.
Get eaten by an ant.
Zombify ant to cause it to climb grass, where it will be eaten by a sheep.
Reproduce inside digestive system of sheep.
If anyone who actually payed attention in biology classes cares to elaborate, please do!
I spent a summer in Ecuador in a field study class. We learned about one fungus that makes its living this way: Spores enter the body of an insect where they mature into the adult fungus. This adult fungus affects the mind of the bug so that it climbs to the tippy-top of whatever tree it's on. Then, when it's at the top it just sits there while the fungus consumes its innards. Finally, when the fungus is done growing, the body of the bug breaks open, and millions of spores go floating about on the wind.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
of God's Intelligent Design on Earth
Parasitism was one of the reasons that Charles Darwin lost his faith in later years. How could a loving God create so much suffering?
There is a group of crabs called Sacculinae, which do the same to the crabs they are parasiting on.
The sacculina is a barnacle which grows on (or rather below) other crabs, squeezing and growing its so called rhizocephalae into the body of the host crab and trying to reach the brain of the crab. After the brain is reached, the host crab turns into a zombie, reacting on each command from the sacculina, even searching for a mate for the sacculina.
the roach genus is quite prolific and well distributed with only 2 or 3 considered pests. The same goes for wasps, and only a few specieses of the genus are considered pests. A whole lot more wasp species are grown as biological crop protection: the locate the caterpillar, lay an egg in it and watch while the new wasp eats its way out of the still living caterpillar. Nothing new here, except that this particular species has found a way to use the roaches power to move the body to a premade burrow instead of digging the burrow on the spot.
Unless Slashdot has a very high percentage of entymologists, I don't think it is that newsworthy for slashdot readers. BTW the submitter was flogging his own book it seems?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Leucochloridium paradoxum is a worm which infects snails and turns them into zombies as well. The zombie snail crawls up vegitation where it can be seen by birds and the parasite causes the snails eye stalks to extend and pulsate to atract birds.
d oxum.htm
The birds then eat the eye stalks and become infected themselves. The worms lay eggs in the bird's digestive system and they are then spread by the birds excrement which the snails eat thus repeating the cycle of life for the parasite.
Rather creepy stuff.
http://people.smu.edu/eheise/Leucochloridium_para
burnin
This is the most sophisticated parasitic routine I have ever heard of, AFAICR. But I was reminded of David Attenborough's BBC TV series "Life in the Undergrowth", which I recently watched - it's available on DVD in the UK, and according to Amazon will be released in the USA at the beginning of May. That contains a few similar examples, including a small wasp whose grub parasitizes living spiders - the biter bit. Strongly recommended, like everything by "Whispering Dave".
Until he explained it, I did not know that wasps were among the oldest of insects, and that both ants and bees were descended from primitive wasps. That set me thinking about cockroaches, which also go back to the dawn of land life. I wondered whether they were, unlike most other bugs, immune to attack by wasps. I guess this article answers that question pretty decisively.
Ever wonder how you would cope with wasps the size of a human being? I know it should be physically impossible, but it's too good a scary idea to give up. "The Furies", by Keith Roberts, is a very good SF novel on that theme, which - unlike many such books - hasn't dated since the 1960s. To quote a review on amazon.co.uk, the Furies are "wasps with a 2 meter wingspan and mandibles like bolt-cutters". And, of course, they hunt in packs...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Hmmm, snips of their antennae and uses the stubs to lead them around? That sounds familiar...
Remote controlled roaches
Although I think that roaches will eventually rise up and rebel using their roach controlled robots.
"Toxoplasma is one of a number of parasites which require alteration of host's behaviour for their life cycle[1]. The changes observed are likely due to the presence of cysts in the brain, which produce or induce production of a neurotransmitter, possibly dopamine[2], therefore acting similarly to dopamine reuptake inhibitor type antidepressants. A slightly increased car accident rate, and reaction time slowed by a few percent have been observed (specifically, the infected lose concentration more quickly than the controls in the second and third minute)[3]. "If our data are true then about a million people a year die just because they are infected with toxoplasma," the researcher Jaroslav Flegr told The Guardian[4]. The data shows that the risk decreases with time after infection, however all older drivers are generally able to compensate for longer reaction time[5]. Ruth Gilbert, medical coordinator of the European Multicentre Study on Congenital Toxoplasmosis, told BBC News Online these findings could be due to chance, or due to social and cultural factors associated with toxoplasma infection[6]. Studies argue about the influence of the parasite on personality. There are claims of toxoplasma causing antisocial attitude in men and promiscuity[7] (or even signs of higher intelligence[8]) in women, and greater susceptibility to schizophrenia and manic depression[9] in all infected persons. A review of research focused on the schizophrenia connection confirms an association but does not confirm a causal relationship [10]."
Maybe women like cats because their toxoplasmosis infections make them smarter! Or maybe it's just because women can identify with creatures that are obsessed with their appearance, are impossible to understand, predict, or order around, and look down their nose in scorn at all of the huffing and panting and howling and slobbering we direct at them...
A-Bomb
When the United States sent over all of those troops (i.e. fathers and sons) to Europe and the Pacific to combat an enemy threatening all of humanity, was there a lot of suffering at home? Yes. Did many of those boys die pointless deaths in Normandy and beyond? Yes. Was the suffering bad? Yes. Was the suffering senseless? NO.
Do not presume that if humans do not know the reason behind the suffering that there is no reason. That suffering is somehow always evil and to be avoided.
Attach the butterfly effect to something as "senseless" as a parasite slowly consuming its host and its following generations and you end up with a very complex picture. Perhaps, just maybe, all those environmentalists chanting that everything is connected are right.
Wl, the first phase is obvious. It's the second phase that seems damn improbable.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's ass. No effect.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's leg. No effect.
(a hundred more variations till the wasp injects neurotoxin into the brain)
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain. Roach dies.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach dies.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach dies.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach goes on a wild rampage and kills the wasp.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach flips and goes numb.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach breaks into spasms.
(a thousand more variations till the wasp gets to the right point of the roach brain, with invariable repeatablity)
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then lays eggs and a bird eats the roach.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach around in random direction.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach towards the Sun.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach out in the open.
(another several thousands of variations where the wasp rides the roach in random unprofitable direction)
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach towards he nest. The roach dies halfway to the nest.
(and a new wasp must evolve life-sustaining additions to the neurotoxin and injecting them in the right place of roach brain)
All the above are pointless from evolutionary point of view, and (as we know) evolution doesn't take long strides through unprofitable behaviours until it reaches some "higher plan", a profitable sophisticated behaviour. There's no evolutionary advancement from a wasp that doesn't inject any neurotoxin and one that injects the neurotoxin and drives the roach in a circle. Only fully developed set of behaviors, from the initial paralysing to settling the roach in the nest and laying the egg is evolutionarily profitable for the species. And the combinatory explosion resulting from all the possible UNPROFITABLE behaviours between plain "kills with poison" and "drives to nest" make me sometimes really doubt plain evolution (though I discard ID as explaination. I just assume "unexplained".) It's just that the change wouldn't be evolutionary but revolutionary - the difference between one and the other behaviour is TOO big and anything inbetween doesn't make sense, so how did the jump happen?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
There are, literally, in any given generation of wasps and roaches anywhere from 10^5 to 10^7 individuals. You could easily cover all of those individual variations in a single generation. The ones that were not successful would be gone in another 2 generations, tops, which would explain why we don't see all of these unsuccessful versions swarming around. Like you said, evolution wouldn't follow through on those unsuccessful variations, but that one that was successful is going to reproduce and pass that particular trait on.
my pet machine
I think you'd enjoy reading The End of Pascal's Wager. I came to the same conclusion a long time ago, but Richard Carrier knows how to word things without sounding like an idiot...
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Crybabies? Quieter? Who exactly are you trying to criticize? Medical researchers? Sick people? Charities that try to raise money for medical research or otherwise help the less fortunate?
My mom happens to be a devout buddhist and is part of a local buddhist group that focuses on environmentalism, charity, etc. Wanting to alleviate suffering has nothing to do with believing that some malevolent force is behind it. It may be convenient to believe that the suffering of others is part of some great plan that "god" has for us, but that kind of thinking only leads to apathy and impedes progress.
Please quit it with your orientalist bullshit. Don't drag philosophies that you haven't actually studied into your arguments.