5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

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Despite being gifted with the body of an explosive predator, I refuse to take a life. This characteristic, which should earn me praise among humanitarian social circles has somehow been mistaken for cowardice when I'm faced with an insect. I don't avoid killing out of a love for all creatures, because, suffice it to say, some animals just suck. I avoid it because the fight wouldn't be fair and I am nothing if not honor-bound.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

I could destroy you.

That said, I get tremendous satisfaction out of seeing these animals die in extraordinary but natural ways. The world has provided some ruthless parasites that target the insects, spiders and rats I hate most. These parasites don't just kill either, they torture, emasculate and generally show their hosts such unapologetic violence that I can't help but be impressed. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and I consider these five tiny torture artists my allies for life.

Liver Fluke vs. Ants

Ants are awful. They mock us with their super strength, their unrelenting commitment to the species and by eating all our floor candy. Also, like a passive aggressive roommate, the ant loves to hang out in your kitchen pointing out the dirty plates you left in the sink or the crumbs on the floor by silently hovering around them until you notice. If an ant could refold the dishtowel every time you finish with it while sighing loudly, it absolutely would.

THOUGHT I'DLET You KNOW...

"Somehow the toilet paper roll is on the wrong way again. Just a heads up."

Fortunately, there are a handful of parasites who want nothing more than to ruin an ant's day. The
liver fluke (Dicrocoelium dentriticum) in particular spends a healthy portion of its existence trying to get an ant accidentally eaten by a cow. The liver fluke will travel through three different species of animal in its life but will only actively try to kill one of those hosts. It begins as an egg in cow feces which is devoured by a snail. It hatches inside the snail and then gets expelled into a slime ball which is, in turn, eaten by an ant. This is where the liver fluke gets malicious. It will infect the ant's mind, changing the insect's behavior -- but only at night. The ant functions normally throughout the day until the temperature drops in the evening, at which point the infected ant feels a very specific urge to climb to the top of a blade of grass where it will potentially be ingested by grazing cattle.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)
Via gimmecorn.com

What a dumb way to die.

Forcing an insect to be eaten by a slow moving, stupid vegetarian mammal is a pretty specific humiliation to make an ant suffer, still, the liver fluke does it each night, the reason being that the liver fluke can only fully mature and reproduce inside the cow's liver and also because fuck ants.

The Insect Destroyer vs. Houseflies

The average day for a housefly is spent running into windows, throwing up on exposed food and then getting lost inside a lampshade. They're hopelessly stupid creatures right up until you carry one outside in a glass to free it and it deliberately flies back into your house before you can shut the door. Everything a fly does seems intentionally annoying; they are animals designed by nature to infuriate humans. If flies started dropping out of the sky by the thousands instead of birds, we would throw a massive parade just to hear the crunching sound of their bodies under the floats.

Pn AGGOTS

Parades need candy.

While I may never see swarms of flies drop dead in midair, I take pleasure in knowing there's a parasitic fungus out there that makes them explode. The Entomophthora fungus, or
Insect Destroyer is a fungus that eats flies from the inside out and then fires spores off in every direction in the hope of landing on a new host. The spores only germinate when they land on an insect and immediately begin penetrating the cuticle of the fly. From there, the fungus replicates inside the fly, devouring its insides for about five days. Just before the host dies and when the spores of the fungus are ready for dispersal again, the fungus tricks the fly's brain into climbing to the highest, most conspicuous spot, for an epic death in an explosion of spores.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

The Insect Destroyer, is a hard name to live up to.

Toxoplasma Gondii vs. Rats

Rats are miserable animals. If their interest in trash, proclivity for stealing and general obnoxiousness weren't enough, rats have the added bonus of being completely terrifying. It's hard to identify exactly what it is about a rat physically that makes them horror incarnate because I don't like the idea of looking at them for long periods of time, but if I had to guess, I would say it's partially because of the soulless black eyes and partially because they are walking
biological weapons. In fact, if you are a new parent and happen to see your baby in the disease-ridden
paws of a rat then, man, just let it go and start over. That's not a battle that's worth winning.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

"Gross. Keep him."

The Toxoplasma gondii parasite is one of the few things that make me feel better about the ubiquity of rats around the world. The parasite lives its adult life hiding away in the intestines of housecats and laying eggs in their feces. But, like most kids who are born into shit, the parasite acts out in the early years by torturing small animals. T. gondii spends an incubation period inside rats, altering their brain chemistry in oddly specific ways: the parasite destroys whatever impulse a rat has to stay away from predators like cats. But rather than just emboldening the rats, the parasite then makes rats
attracted to the smell of cat urine.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

"Don't you look at me. Don't you dare look at me."

We've mentioned this parasite before but recent studies show that it's not just a fleeting curiosity on the part of the rodent either, the rat is sexually attracted to the smell of cat urine and, presumably, interested in nailing a cat. In most cases, the cat won't see any immediate gain from the arrangement and will opt instead to eviscerate the rat. This focused brand of torture is all an elaborate method to get back into the cat's intestines, but from the perspective of an outside observer, I can't help but feel like T. gondii and I are on the same page about how badly rats suck.

Parasitoid Wasp vs. Spider

Unlike the other animals on this list, spiders take a more modest approach to human inconvenience: they generally keep to corners, they stay quiet and they don't gnaw through trash bags in swarms. Spiders, in fact, are nearly invisible, and that's exactly the problem. Archnids across the board are surprise irritations, they show up when you least expect them, crawling across your pillow in the night or building expansive, imperceptible webs in walkways, always exactly at head level. Additionally, some of them are extremely poisonous. So, while I am vocally appreciate of their willingness to kill insects and hang the corpses up on display, I despise them in silence.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

God damnit, you spiders.

Enter the Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga, a parasitic wasp that kills spiders for a purpose. In the hierarchy of awesome animals I created in third grade, wasp and spider weren't that far from one another but I'm willing to align myself with this particular wasp because it's so unrepentant in the way ruins the life of the Plesiometa spider. The wasp will sting the spider, paralyzing it just long enough to lay a single egg on the spider's abdomen. The egg will hatch and the larva will gradually suck the blood out of the spider while living on its back for two weeks.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

Look at that stupid spider.

Then, when the wasp is developed enough to pupate, it releases a chemical into the spider which forces it to weave a cocoon for the wasp, a task the spider has never done in its life yet somehow accomplishes with tremendous skill. As a thank you for all the hard work, the wasp larva injects a poison into the spider and sucks out the remaining fluids before curling up in the cocoon and taking a nap. Ha. Yes. Take that, spiders.

Wolbachia vs. Cockroaches, Locusts, Wasps , Mites, Flatworms...just everything.

Imagine for a moment a world in which men became obsolete, where every birth was an immaculate conception and the only babies born were girls. Additionally in this world, the few men who are around start turning into women or dying of a deadly disease. The prospect is horrifying.

PL 1 ese DEDISSSUNSISEE 20 1000

All those unopened jars, just sitting there.

Now imagine it happening to cockroaches and join me in a long, hearty laugh at their collective misfortune. The
Wolbachia is a parasitic bacteria that attacks cockroaches, wasps, moths and even other parasites, turning all the males into females and ruining all sexual encounters. Unlike most other parasites, the Wolbachia infects the sex organs of arthropods in two primary ways: 1) It causes males to develop into females 2) All the females, including the transsexuals, start producing offspring asexually. What's more, the offspring are all guaranteed to be female as well. The reason for all this emasculation and forced celibacy is that the parasite can successfully infect the next generation from the point of conception by passing through the arthropod's eggs, but it can only achieve it through females. As a result, it's cut males out of the equation entirely. The bacteria will even kill any males during larval development or force them to develop as females, and destroy the immune systems of infected adult males so they die off.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

"Girls night!"

The Wolbachia is the number one parasite on this list because it doesn't just kill a few hosts, it destroys the sexual mechanics of entire species, forever. And it's not isolated to one continent or habitat either, the parasite can infect around 60% of arthropod species around the world, ruining the lives of shitty insects, flat worms and spiders everywhere, and just generally playing God. I would offer the Wolbachia a figurative handshake if I wasn't so terrified of what it would do once it knew I existed.

5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)

You win, thing.

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