> Parasitism is far from easy living; hundreds of millions of years of evolution have prodded parasites to find and manipulate other animals, just as those animals have evolved their own unique methods of survival.
Parasites manipulating their hosts is something that really fascinates me from an evolutionary point of view. An example given in the article is T. gondii [0]:
> [...] a parasitic protozoan that boasts “Mind Control,” because it attracts its rodent host to the smell of cat urine, where the rat spreads the parasite to felines.
Infected mice also have a reduced fear from predators, likely for the same reason.
Parasites manipulating their hosts is something that really fascinates me from an evolutionary point of view. An example given in the article is T. gondii [0]:
> [...] a parasitic protozoan that boasts “Mind Control,” because it attracts its rodent host to the smell of cat urine, where the rat spreads the parasite to felines.
Infected mice also have a reduced fear from predators, likely for the same reason.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii