Nature Blog Network

Friday, October 24, 2008

Parasitic Mind Control in Ants



Its just wrong! Poor ants...

5 comments:

  1. Think of the mind control like pre-election time in Hu-mans.

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  2. cool video find!
    And cool parasitism! This is one of the parasites from Parasites Unleashed...the "Take Over Brain" card features the Dicrocoelium genus of trematodes that create ZOMBIE ANTS!!!

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  3. Ah! Dicrocoelium is *awesome* but that video is both obnoxious and wrong. The behavioural change is temperature dependent. When it gets cooler in the evening/over night, instead of returning to the colony the ant climbs to the end of a leaf. When it gets warmer again in the morning, the ant's behaviour returns to normal. Apparently, though, some ruminants do like to graze when it's cooler.

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  4. Thanks for the input Kimberly!

    It makes sense that ruminants graze when its colder, less energy expended in the foraging process.

    I agree the narrator's voice is annoying lol.

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  5. Hmm. I hadn't thought about the energy issue. Or that it was even an issue, though I do see that now, given the food source.

    But I'm not making the connection. How do they conserve energy when it's colder? I would have thought it was quite the opposite, given their body would have to work harder to maintain a homeostatic temperature.

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