# Creepy Parasites (1 Viewer)



## caelum (May 19, 2010)

If I may call your attention to two videos, sirs and madams.
Here we have the first, called Body Invaders.

Now here we have an extremely disturbing video of a caterpillar's body being invaded by wasp larvae.  What is the most intriguing thing to me (spoilers ahead) is the way they change the caterpillar's behavior.  When the things finally burst out of its chest alien style, I thought it was a goner - but no, it just had to become the larvaes's personal bodyguard.  I mean, seriously, what the hell.  There are similar kinds of parasites that infect crabs, making their eggsacs produce parasite eggs instead of crab eggs, and then when the crabs give birth to them they protect them just like normal.  Except it's not normal.  Very not normal.

The second video is called Cordyceps: attack of the killer fungi.  This time it's not a bug invading another bug, it's bugs being invaded by _plants_.  Technically fungi aren't plants, but whatever.  If there was a human variant of this form of fungus, I would honestly think it would be the scariest thing ever (FYI the most common human parasite is tapeworm).  And this footage here is from BBC's Planet Earth series which totally rocks.

The next time you see bread mold, think very carefully before you eat it.  I know I will.


----------



## NathanBrazil (May 19, 2010)

Kewl.  I want one of them things growin' out the top of my head too.


----------



## moderan (May 19, 2010)

...ichneumon wasps. Nasty little critters.


----------



## Eluixa (May 19, 2010)

My morbid curiosity got the better of me. Ugh. Thanks. Glad it's been a while since I ate.


----------



## NathanBrazil (May 19, 2010)

Makes for good monster-idea fodder.


----------



## Olly Buckle (May 19, 2010)

Ichneumon flies do have a purpose, they stop the purveyors of "Intelligent design" theories dead in their tracks, what is God like if he designed them?


----------



## k3ng (May 19, 2010)

caelum said:


> The next time you see bread mold, think very carefully before you eat it.  I know I will.


 
Wait hang on... you would consider eating bread mould?


----------



## Baron (May 19, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> Ichneumon flies do have a purpose, they stop the purveyors of "Intelligent design" theories dead in their tracks, what is God like if he designed them?


 
The intelligent design camp has an answer, Olly.  Their argument would be that corruption pain and fear are the result of the fall.  All creation was made subject to it.


----------



## JosephB (May 19, 2010)

And here I thought the thread was going to be about politicians.



Baron said:


> The intelligent design camp



That's sounds interesting. I might send my kids there next summer.


----------



## Linton Robinson (May 19, 2010)

I think it's really funny to read a post saying, "This is a good fodder for stories",  then another saying, "Why would God design such a thing?"


----------



## JosephB (May 19, 2010)

He was probably just having bad day -- and one out of six ain't bad.


----------



## Linton Robinson (May 19, 2010)

I gotta say those things look like a pretty damned smart design to me.


----------



## JosephB (May 19, 2010)

You're right. He probably designed the platypus on a bad day.


----------



## Linton Robinson (May 19, 2010)

Hard to judge, from our perspective


----------



## Patrick (May 19, 2010)

Ironically, most objections to intelligent design are theological in nature. If you want to believe in fairy tales to make yourself feel more comfortable, then you can always believe in the almighty power of random mutation and natural selection. If I copied enough of my Mozart CD's and added random errors, eventually, I would be sure to end up with Beethoven... wouldn't I... guys... no takers on that experiment? Of course, the problem with natural selection is that nothing is selecting anything. It's just a statement of what survives survives and the probabilistic scale for that is more heavily affected by influences outside of minor genetic alterations, like pure, dumb luck.


----------



## Linton Robinson (May 19, 2010)

What I think is funniest about this stuff is there is always somebody pointing to something they consider ridiculous and saying,  "Why would God have made something like that."

And I'm wondering, "Why would something like that evolve?"

I just kind of don't like the idea of living in a universe that's stupidly designed.

So I don't.


----------



## Linton Robinson (May 19, 2010)

All of which is the "hashed over a jillion times elsewhere but for some reason got jammed into this thread" stuff.

What I would think would be theologically interesting here is the idea of an organism doing things with the full force of it's being, even to the point of sacrificing its life for them, because it's infected with some microscopic item. 

With an eye towards,  human civilization is a self-defeating mechanism impelled because our DNA was infected with some space slime that is using us to perpetuate itself.

Or some such.

And that's just sticking to an earth-bound balliwick.   

Maybe God is a virus, and the universe a malignancy from the point of view of some host somewhere, yet a drive towards being by the invading molecule.


----------



## caelum (May 19, 2010)

FIIIIIIGAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoO


----------



## Sigg (May 19, 2010)

caelum said:


> If I may call your attention to two videos, sirs and madams.
> Here we have the first, called Body Invaders.
> 
> Now here we have an extremely disturbing video of a caterpillar's body being invaded by wasp larvae. What is the most intriguing thing to me (spoilers ahead) is the way they change the caterpillar's behavior. When the things finally burst out of its chest alien style, I thought it was a goner - but no, it just had to become the larvaes's personal bodyguard. I mean, seriously, what the hell. There are similar kinds of parasites that infect crabs, making their eggsacs produce parasite eggs instead of crab eggs, and then when the crabs give birth to them they protect them just like normal. Except it's not normal. Very not normal.
> ...



Finally, I understand something I saw when I was like 6 or 7.  I swatted a fly and a bunch of tiny white worm lookin things started spewing out.  Must have been parasites!


----------



## Sigg (May 19, 2010)

What I find equally interesting as parasitic symbiosis is mutualistic symbiosis, such great story material because it is so easily used as a metaphor for people/society.


----------



## caelum (May 19, 2010)

FIIIIIIGAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoO


----------



## NathanBrazil (May 19, 2010)

I had heard the following about the cuckoo bird and a friend of mine asked how does evolution explain this behavior.

"The cuckoo bird egg in the host nest is hatched before any other eggs in the nest are hatched. Once the cuckoo bird baby comes out, it will use all it's power to drop the other eggs from the nest. This it does so that the foster parents can dole all the attention and care to them. It so happens that the foster parents might end up feeding the cuckoo bird alone, the amount of food that was supposed to be fed to all the birds in the nest. Therefore the cuckoo bird will grow rapidly. Many a times, you will notice that the cuckoo bird is much larger than the foster parents and will continue to be fed for several weeks."


----------



## Patrick (May 19, 2010)

lin said:


> What I think is funniest about this stuff is there is always somebody pointing to something they consider ridiculous and saying,  "Why would God have made something like that."


 
They're usually pointing at the mirror, too.



NathanBrazil said:


> I had heard the following about the cuckoo  bird and a friend of mine asked how does evolution explain this  behavior.
> 
> "The cuckoo bird egg in the host nest is hatched before any other eggs  in the nest are hatched. Once the cuckoo bird baby comes out, it will  use all it's power to drop the other eggs from the nest. This it does so  that the foster parents can dole all the attention and care to them. It  so happens that the foster parents might end up feeding the cuckoo bird  alone, the amount of food that was supposed to be fed to all the birds  in the nest. Therefore the cuckoo bird will grow rapidly. Many a times,  you will notice that the cuckoo bird is much larger than the foster  parents and will continue to be fed for several weeks."



Irresponsible parents exist in the animal kingdom too. 

It depends on whether or not you believe evolution can account for animal behaviour/strategies. I am not that fussed for stories of how something can be imagined to happen, you need the proof of it at the level of genetics. What genetic changes do you need to obtain behaviour A for example, and then how likely are those changes in a given period of time, etc.


----------



## Futhark (May 19, 2010)

I've been fascinated by this topic for years. One behavior-influencing illness that often gets overlooked is the rabies virus. It turns its host into the perfect delivery vector. The virus is spread through saliva. So what does it do? Increase saliva production. (Ergo, foaming at the mouth.) Not only that, it makes sure that the host increases the transmission factor as much as possible by amping up the host's aggression factor. More saliva + heightened aggression = very slobbery puncture wounds from biting.

Rabies for the win!


----------



## Red_Venus (May 19, 2010)

Ok, two things. The caterpillar with the wasp larva; EEEWWWW.

The fungi...is it just me, or does that fungus make those insects into beautiful, yet cringe-inducing, works of art? Maybe I'm just looking at it all wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw&NR=1 this one was in the related vids. Double-yuck!


----------



## Olly Buckle (May 19, 2010)

When I was a teenager I had a mate who had been born in Germany during the war, then came to England when he was about six and his mum married a British soldier, he said he could remember being really puzzled at English people throwing away bread just because it was mouldy, wouldn't do you much harm Caelum, think unprocessed penecillin. Things that grow on starch are not too bad, it's the ones that grow on protiens that really kill you dead.


----------



## caelum (May 20, 2010)

Tell that to this guy, Buckle old buddy.


----------



## KangTheMad (May 20, 2010)

I like Animal Planet, Nature, Planet Earth ect. Those bugs are disgusting though. ugh.


----------



## NathanBrazil (May 20, 2010)

Thems not so bad.

Now thas an ugly bug.


----------



## k3ng (May 20, 2010)

caelum said:


> Tell that to this guy, Buckle old buddy.


 
Wow. That is... extreme.

I wonder if facial reconstruction or prosthetics can help the guy. He looks like he's got a cave for a face.. like you could reach in and feel his brains.

Ok, I'm grossing myself out now.


----------



## Patrick (May 20, 2010)

caelum said:


> Tell that to this guy, Buckle old buddy.



Horrific. The only consolation is he can't see it. Can you imagine the humiliation and misery of having a hole where your face should be? I can't believe he wouldn't want to just die. I'd top myself quicker than you can say rat up a drainp...


----------



## caelum (May 20, 2010)

FIIIIIIGAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoO


----------



## Patrick (May 20, 2010)

caelum said:


> Not to give the impression that my mind only dwells on the rank and disturbing, but that mold guy looks sort of like the woman who was attacked by a chimp.  Please don't google that.  It wasn't really the chimp's fault though, cause the owner gave it some human drugs, antidepressants or something, that drove it crazy.  The cops shot it.
> The one consolation the mold victim has is he doesn't know what he looks like.



I've seen that. That's really bad too. Chimps have very nasty turns anyway, Caelum; they've got their own psycho switch.


----------

