SKIRMISHER

If you never thought you’d feel bad for cockroaches, consider this: The green jewel wasp can perform brain surgery on a cockroach, turning it into a living zombie.

The tropical wasp injects venom that blocks octopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with alertness and movement. Once the roach is its slave, the wasp plants its own larvae inside the roach’s body, and the larvae eat the roach from the inside out.

So why go to all the trouble of mind control? It’s a matter of timing: The wasp larvae need a week to mature, and the adult’s wasp venom keeps the zombie cockroach helpless but alive for that period

Just one of the zombie animals and the parasites that control them.

{Intriguing: Cordyceps, puppet master}

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