Nature Blog Network

Friday, October 24, 2008

Parasitic Mind Control in Ants



Its just wrong! Poor ants...

Reading: Parasitic Mind Control in AntsPost Link to Twitter

Posted by Kevin Zelnio at 1:01 PM

Labels: , ,

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 24, 2008 at 3:01 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eric HeupelOctober 25, 2008 at 9:52 AM

    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!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. KimOctober 30, 2008 at 6:10 PM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kevin ZelnioOctober 30, 2008 at 8:50 PM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  5. KimOctober 30, 2008 at 9:03 PM

    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.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)