this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 126 points 6 months ago

Oh Carl's still there. In perpetual agony.

[–] [email protected] 90 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Looked it up, and I think I've had enough internet for today

[–] [email protected] 68 points 6 months ago (2 children)

just a little dancin'. boogie woogie woogie.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago

No no no no no

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Did someone say Boogie Woogie?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I can already guess that it's a parasite that takes control of the hosts body. truly is the worst type of parasite

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It also crawls into the snail's eyestalks and starts dancing in the snail's eyes

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

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)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 months ago

This shit creeps me out so much.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 months ago

Man, me and the several billion gut bacteria I coexist with don’t like this at all!

[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 107 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Trust me. You don't want to know. It's fucked up parasite shit. On the same level as the fungus that takes over ants.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Your right, I looked it up and I wish I didn't

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 months ago (11 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

That’s why momma always reminded us:

Be kind, they may harbor a latent Toxoplasma gondii infection that could subtly influence their behavior and personality.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Oh come now, there are so many more interesting parasites that mess with your brain for their own benefit; Trypanosoma which messes with your sleep before slowly killing you, Naegleria fowleri that just straight up eats your brain and a host of others that do weird and wonderful things.

Look at it this way; before you were surrounded by mind controlled ants, suicidal rodents and other such horrors without even knowing it. Now you do know about them. What's that? I'm really not helping? Ok, I'll stop.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This is a good place to leave this link to a nice folk song about parasites that has a verse on Toxoplasma of course

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

And those little things might make you kinky. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474704916659746 (One of my favorit papers because a friend of mine got them)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

image your best friend becomes a zombie...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's a parasite that causes snails to get to higher places and get eaten by birds where it reproduces in their digestive system.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago

God damn, Nature. You scary.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The snail has been taken over by parasitic flatworms that control it to seek out exposed spots and pulsate inside of their eye stalks to get eaten by a bird and enter the next stage of their life cycle, which they spend by living in the birds cloaca and spreading their eggs via feces.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Are the birds negatively affected by the wormies?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago

tl:dr; nightmare stuff

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Guys am I the one not getting it or being insensitive toward the snails or is this just the classical "mildly alters behavior of intermediate host in order to spread to host more easily" again?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Jesus fuck the snails LIVE? What a wild article.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Being eaten is a mercy at that point.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The birds don’t even eat the snails, just the eyes. They grow back and the snail is just fine apparently.

“Ah jeeze I’m blind on a leaf again! That’s the last time I eat bird shit!” says the snail, actively meandering it’s way towards a particularly appetizing pile of parasite-laden bird shit.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

Clearly I didn't read it closely enough! You just know there are snails that have their eyes eaten regularly.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The GIF is interesting, fun and disturbing, and so is the article if you scroll further. Highly recommended read.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

It's *mesmerising. Seconding the article recommendation.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Oh oh oh oh no oh no

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I may just have became desensitized to these things over the years, but if I could choose between having my eyes plucked out or dying I'd certainly choose the former, and that's not even with my eyes being capable of regenerating.

Also the boogie-woogie they do is very grotesque but it's not particularly scary for me either.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Something about this reminds me about Evangelion?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

comparison of cartoon snail and Asuka from Evangelion

There it is

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