parasitic stripper. it just strips its hosts control of its own body and starts dancing

Iirc is to attract birds so it can infect the bird and use it to reproduce. After the bird has eaten the parasite out of the snail's eyeballs, the snail can often regenerate and keep living as usual. This is what I recall from a YouTube video at least ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

His right or your right?

That'll be Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. It invades the ant's brain and causes it to leave it's nest and go somewhere better for the fungus then wait to die as the fungus errupts from its head.

If we're talking about nightmare mind control horrors, we shouldn't forget our old friend toxiplasmosis gondii, which infects rodents, then alters their behaviour so they're not afraid of cats, in particular. This leads to the rodent getting eaten so the parasite can infect the cat, which is the only place it can reproduce, before spreading from the cat faeces back into the rodent population. It can also infect humans where there is evidence that it affects behavior too, particularly making males more careless of rules.

Sleep well.

It’s a thing that exists in real life that was essentially used as the base premise (but for humans) in The Last Of Us.

Like Shaun of the Dead? That wasn't too bad

Their eyes don’t pulse out of their heads, if that’s what you mean.

Nature is everything

Being eaten is a mercy at that point.

It's *mesmerising. Seconding the article recommendation.