A parasite that eats snail gonads and controls fishes’ minds

The Euhaplorchis californiensis is a little parasite who experience in Southern California . And in this movie , released last year by researcher with the USGS , we learn why its lifecycle is the stuff of nightmares .

According to the USGS Western Ecological Research Center :

This parasite infests the mentality of lowly Pisces the Fishes in the Carpinteria Salt Marsh near Santa Barbara . It causes a Pisces to swim erratically , making its host more visible to hungry , predatory birds . When the birds eat the fish and pilot aside to the sky , they also contain the parasite away , eventually broadcast the sponge ’s eggs into other ponds through their fecal matter .

But then what hap is even creepier . The dung parasites infest local escargot , eat up the snails ’ gonads . Then the castrate snail are rust by Pisces the Fishes , whose brains are eventually controlled and the round begin afresh . It ’s amazing how one parasite can do so many completely dread thing . Truly , the Euhaplorchis californiensis is the greatest parasite of them all .

viaUSGS WERC(Thanks , Ben Young Landis ! )

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