This is not for the squeamish: watch what parasitic wasps do to a caterpillar.
The Aliens movies missed some potential for creepiness, I think.
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There are so many fascinating stories about parasitic wasps that they have become a regular feature in this blog. Usually, their prey come off poorly in these tales, with caterpillars being reduced to little more than living, paralysed larders for macabre wasp grubs. But not always - some hosts don…
If you keep a vegetable garden, there's a fair chance you'll encounter a grisly sight this summer. Some poor caterpillar will be clutching a leaf, with the pupae of parasitic wasps sprouting off its back. It has just died in a most grotesque way. A wasp has zeroed in on the caterpillar and injected…
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Few humans have been as successful in Hollywood as parasitoids. Parasitoids are a particularly gruesome kind of parasite that invariably kills its host by the time it becomes an adult and is ready to leave the host's body. A parasitoid female wasp, to give one example, will fly along until it finds…
Fascinating.. pass the Gagh!
"It's a larvae eat larvae world."
Ok, I've got it out of my system. :P
Organic pest controls ROCK!
Let's see Sarin do that.
Wow.
See Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex for more amazing stories.
Eesh.
Nice to know that god made it all, for sure. Why invoke natural selection for survival strategies, when you can blame all of the evil of this world on god? Or Satan, depending on one's "theology," of course.
Then again, what is uglier than worms hanging out of a human's butt? Sometimes I think "god did it" is all about telling us that god is indeed a nasty a-hole, who'll be sure to roast you in flames while worms eat your guts if you don't bow before the prophets of the Dishonesty Institute.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Has the compound that changes the host's behavior been isolated, synthesized and used elsewhere?
That was gross. I'm not put off the snack I brought to work.
Well, Alien was partly inspired by this sort of thing. But have you seen Slither?
I watched this with a lovely girl the other night while we were stoned. It's beautiful to me in a way, and it brings back fond memories :-)
That was cool.
If the creationists are right, that Jehovah/Elohim/Yahweh dude is one sick fucker.
Ah yes, one of the invented god using an intelligently designed predator to parasitize one of it's intelligently designed victim.
Has the compound that changes the host's behavior been isolated, synthesized and used elsewhere?
Yes, the RNC has used it to swell the ranks of the GOP since the '80s.
Holy shit... it not only bursts though it's skin but brain washes it into complete obedience to the point of suicide by starvation... God's a a##hole
Wow... the process alone is incredible - that the caterpillar not only survives the ordeal, but is brainwashed to protect its new "children - but the photography is just superb! I can't imagine how they managed to get that camera INSIDE the caterpillar. That just blows my mind.
Nightmares!!!
Thanks PZ
Almost everybody who has raised tomato plants has found "tomato worms" - fat green leaf-eating sphinx moth caterpillars almost as big as your finger. Occasionally one of these caterpillars will develop dozens of little rice-grain-sized pupa cases of a Braconid wasp that parasitizes the caterpillars. Go to Google Images and enter "tomato worms with Braconid wasp pupae" to see a bunch of pictures.
That's actually one of my favorite Darwin quotes: "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that a cat should play with mice."
@Sven
I was about to mention Zimmer. There's some "great" stuff there!
yes, how could they CREATE those shots in this computer age?
I can't imagine how they managed to get that camera INSIDE the caterpillar. That just blows my mind.
It's as simple as inserting a small tropical fish up one's urethra.
@ #12 Holbach
Dude! EPIC WIN!
God is like the kid who squishes frogs and maims insects!
Reminds me of my undergrad days of living in a dorm. I was put in a room with this little moron business major, and we hated each other. One day I found that morning cloak butterfly caterpillars had made scores of chrysalises on the outside walls of the cafeteria. I collected about 80 of them, and taped them up on the dorm room wall. Then waited to collect the butterflies. But unbeknownst to me, every one had been parasitized by wasps. When I came back one afternoon, there was the little business major prick, sitting at his desk, wasps buzzing all around, and he was ready to go insane.
Ok, equal parts eww and cool.
The thing that amazes me is that these little wormy guys all know to stay away from the vital organs. I guess they just don't like the taste of caterpillar chitterlings.
And then they brainwash the freaking caterpillar to be their giant zombie bodyguard!!!
And furthermore, ngyeeeesh!
I think I saw Feagletosh in there sloshing around. Ewww...skustin'!
Oh, fucking GAH!
And yet, strangely beautiful in its efficiency. How anyone can look at nature and still believe in a merciful god, I don't know.
Thanks for finding another amazing lesson, PZ.
FWIW, I don't think the interior shots were CG...they looked more like good model work to me.
Humm. On my iPhone I read that as cheese burgers.
Reminds me of Resident Evil 4.
same here.. but the mouth on the grub looked CGI
Ooh, synchronicity! I'd literally just put down some reading on the Aliens movies when I stumbled on to this post.
Also: Gah!! That sudden fast-motion bit at about 2.50 scared me a lot more than it should have.
The parasites remind me of my ex-wife. No. I am not bitter.
Isn't this what led Darwin to become an agnostic/atheist? He "refused to believe that a benevolent creator" could have created such wasps.
Oh.
From the title, I assumed that this post was going to be about new smart bras.
Beautiful. I forced myself to watch it three times.
The photography was great. The inside of the body looked weird though.
I was thinking the interior shots in general looked like high-quality 70's Doctor Who aliens, while the grub's mouth looked like the mad scientist's from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
But then again, I think of almost everything in terms of how it relates to pop culture...
That was just plain disturbing.
Poor li'l catapillar has Stockholm Syndrome !
Ah, nothing better than a nice sci-fi worthy parasite... personally, I like the ant-beheading flies. Or Cymothoa. Or the emerald cockroach wasp... Oh, who am I kidding. I like them all *twisted grin*
ARRRGGHHH!!! How in the world did they get that tiny camera INTO the caterpillar?!
And to think, it's all because Eve munched a bit of fruit.
Marshall, probably fiber optics.
Amazing. I'm curious how such a virus might evolve. I can see how "create a virus which hijacks a wasps brain and orders it to build a cocoon" but this seems like an incredibly complex task. Perhaps this tells us something interesting about the structure of the caterpillar's brain - they must have a rather easily triggered "cocoon-building" on-off switch. Do humans have analogous triggers for similarly complex activities?
I love parasitic wasps.
Because I hate, hate, hate tomato hornworms.
Come on, haven't you people read the Bible? This seems like is exactly the sort of thing good ol' Jehovah would come up with! I've said as much to Christians using the example of Ampulex compressa. As a rule, this is not well recieved, however enthusiastically I wax about it as a Marvel of the Lord's Glorious Creation &c.
Go figure.
That was disgusting and fascinating and disgusting. I was like watching a car crash. :P
Thats amazing!
That was absolutely fascinating! And a bit disgusting, but really rather fascinating. Personally I wish the clip was longer. I wanted to see them emerge from the cocoons!
Awesome vid. I prefer insect eating fungi myself!
Here's a link!
I think that was definitely fascinating how the caterpillar spins more silk over them and protects them from predators. The larva's toxin is like the ultimate mind control drug....in fact, I'd love to study it and see if I could produce some kind of drug like that from it. That would be interesting!
Why do people think the 'interior' shots were faked. Those particular shots don't look too difficult to me. Cut a caterpillar in half and film though a good dissecting microscope.
OK...combine that with rabies and speed it up and you have a zombie apocalypse!!!
*off to write a book*
That. Was. Cool.
Why would any of you think the video is some kind of evidence for the non-existence of God. It's amazing what you all will come up with.
Why are any of you squeemish about the natural world? It is after-all natural and we are a part of it, right? So what's to be squeemish about?
What, was the catepillar in fear of the wasp infestation? Were the wasps evil parasites that horrifyingly dominated the catapillar in such a sadistic manner? Why the anthropomorphic interpretation of what is happening? The narrator takes the same tone, implying there is some horrendous activity going on. What, does the catepillar feel? Do the wasps have evil intentions?
Why not look at it from another perspective? The catapillar is cooperating with the wasp's needs. There are plenty of catapillars so a portion of them are given to the wasps for their survival.
Just like the rabbit. It produces several rabbitos, gives several to the snake, keeping a few for itself. The snake produce hundreds of little snakinos and gives the majority away to other hungry snakes, mongooses, and other animals, keeping a portion for its own legacy.
Insects produce thousands of offspring, the majority being given to the birds for their survival. But since insects produce thousands, the birds have enough. Some are left for the insects continuation.
Hey, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. I need some of yours and he needs some of mine. Win, win.
Sounds like a plan for success to me.
HOLY AWFULNESS THAT WAS HIDEOUS
I know I know: I had fair warning, I shouldn't have clicked on the link, but I was enticed by the offer of learning something new and let my curiosity win out. And it was fascinating yes, but IEW IEW IEW IEW IEW
Jason: Virus?
Don Cates: I'm not a video expert, but to me the interior shots are far too high-quality. High-res, good lighting, the motion of the fluids looks a little too much like what I would expect at a larger scale (the sloshing in particular) and the larvae just don't look or move quite right to me. Just a bit too rubbery in the skin, the skin doesn't seem to fold right, and the movement seems off. The jaws also seem a bit off in the closeup vs. the shots of them actually chewing their way out.
I dunno, maybe all of that is artifacts of whatever technique they used, and obviously I've never seen genuine shots like this before to compare to. But my money's on models.
Steve P: I realize you're trolling, though I wonder if you aren't just a Poe...your comment sounds an awful lot like "A Modest Proposal." Or are you just trotting out the hoary old "atheists are nihilists so why do you find anything wrong with this?" argument.
Regardless, this can't be "fun" for the caterpillar, for whatever rudimentary feeling it may have. If species were somehow prone to helping other species completely selflessly (they aren't), there are better ways to help than this. And as explained, this is in no way voluntary for the caterpillar. And the entire context is problematic for you, since how is the caterpillar helping? By shielding the larvae throughout the process from hordes of other creatures looking to do very similar things to them.
But above all else, this happens across the animal kingdom, as you yourself point out. Sneering at ascribing emotions to caterpillars and wasps doesn't help much when we start talking about charismatic mammals and humans. And nevermind the nastier forms of parasitism...why would you defend Things Eating Things in general as an ideal model produced by a Loving God?
that is so screwed up...nightmares in 3...2...1...
Awesome Cordyceps video , Justin. Thanks for the link!
In the caterpillar movie, I didn't really understand where the mind-control virus came in. Apparently when the wasp laid her eggs?
When i was a little girl, i had once found a catapillar. I hoped that it would turn into a butterfly.
To my horror, it had yellow thingies coming from it after a while. I had no idea what they were than, but was rather grosed out.
I threw it all away in the trash.
Now i know what happened.. fasinating :)
Isn't it more probable that the wasp larvae emit a chemical that makes the caterpillar behave a certain way, rather than some 'virus?' The same/similar chemicals that would normally make the caterpillar 'know' to spin a cocoon around itself?
That was really cool!
I'm only a blacksmith, so I don't know anything about the biology behind this behaviour. Maybe someone here could comment on this hypothesis:
The wasp infestation turns on an artifact maternal instinct. This instinct then runs its course as it does in many other species, i.e. protection of ones own young. This would explain how a virus could "control" so many different behaviors by only making one modification.
The wasp infestation turns on an artifact maternal instinct. This instinct then runs its course as it does in many other species, i.e. protection of ones own young. This would explain how a virus or chemical interaction could "control" so many different behaviors by only making one modification.
for decades i've been a fan of richard corben, an artist with a keen sense for horror. here's a few pages from his book muvovum (1982), the sequel to his famous neverwhere (1978). the folks from alien may have missed some potential, but corben didn't.
muvovum, spanish edition (excerpt)
I know I've been beaten to it but can I just repeat that Parasite Rex is one of the most entertaining popular science books I've ever read. It's worth it just to see the reactions of friends and colleagues when you read them some of the juicier passages :-)
I dreamed this this night. Before watching the video. Seems I have way too many parasites on my mind.
@#62 L.Minnik
Certain parasitoid wasps replicate a specific mutualistic virus that helps lower their host's immune system.
Perhaps that's not the best way to put it...
Certain parasitoid wasps are actually wasp/virus chimeras, as the virus genome is actually part of the wasp genome!
Google polydnavirus.
Google polydnavirus.
*does so*
!!!!!!!!!!
That just overtook toxoplasmosis in the "OMNEG that's fucked-up" parasitism charts.
@ Robert Dobbs
Some parasites do take advantage of manipulating a host's maternal instinct. For example, sacculina barnacles get their crab hosts, both male and female, to take care of the exposed part of the barnacle like it's the crab's eggs.
But butterflies don't usually protect their young, and a butterfly caterpillar is like a non-reproducing child, so I doubt there's much maternal instinct to take advantage of in this case.
So the poor caterpillar survives? Oh good Lord! Another proof of Your benevolence!
But my blasphemous scientific side is thinking... it's possible to modify the tiny wasps to eat human fat? Imagine a clean, cheap and tickling liposuction! Critters can leave the body via anus so they don't leave scars.
What's awful is that the first thing that I thought of when I watched the video was Malcolm in the Middle:
Hal: You know those nature shows where a wasp paralyzes a caterpillar, then injects it full of larvae? It stays alive for weeks, completely aware, feeling every little bite as the larvae devour it from the inside. I sat in a cubicle every day envying that caterpillar, cause at least he got to be on TV.
Freaky stuff!
Ha! That's nothing!! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Leucochloridium paradoxum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw
(Think Futurama's 'Hypnotoad' noise while you watch.)
Suddenly, I just can't stop screaming.