#Official Toxoplasmosis Canadian Government Data Sheet Falls Short - Why?

Toxoplasma gondii - Pathogen Safety Data Sheet

SECTION I - INFECTIOUS AGENT

NAME: Toxoplasma gondii

SYNONYM OR CROSS REFERENCE: Toxoplasmosis, congenital toxoplasmosis, toxoplasma infection ^{Footnote1Footnote2}.

CHARACTERISTICS: Toxoplasma gondii belong to the phylum Apicomplexa and family Sarcocystidae. They are obligate intracellular parasitic protozoa ^Footnote3. Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite of birds and mammals. Felines are the only definitive host and the only animals that pass infective oocysts in their feces. Warm-blooded animals, including humans, are intermediate hosts that harbour tissue cysts in their bodies. Three major infectious stages and major morphological forms occur: oocyst-containing two sporocysts and four sporozoites each, quickly-multiplying tachyzoites, and slow-growing bradyzoites contained in persistent tissue cysts ^Footnote3. Infection is most often initiated through the ingestion of oocysts containing sporozoites or cysts containing bradyzoites in contaminated food or water. Following ingestion, the sporozoites or bradyzoites invade the intestinal epithelium and differentiate to tachyzoites, which disseminate and replicate within the new host. In feline infections, T.gondii sexual reproduction is enteroepithelial and asexual reproduction is extraintestinal. Intermediate hosts only experience extraintestinal infection ^Footnote4. Generally, oocysts are spherical and measure 10x12 µm, sporozoites measure 2x6 µm, tachyzoites are crescent-shaped and 2x6 µm, tissue cysts are spheroid and have a diameter of 5 µm - 70 µm, bradyzoites measure 7x1.5 µm ^{Footnote4Footnote5}.

SECTION II - HAZARD IDENTIFICATION

PATHOGENICITY/TOXICITY: Toxoplasma gondii infection is usually non-pathogenic in immunocompetent adults. The major pathogenic factor is proliferation of tachyzoites, destroying host cells faster than they can regenerate. In acute infection, mild symptoms can arise, including fever, rash, headache, lymphadenopathy, organomegaly (liver and/or spleen), weight loss, weakness, pneumonia, and myalgia ^Footnote6. More severe symptoms are rare and mostly affect immunocompromised patients, although they can also develop in immunocompetent individuals. These include retinochoroiditis, and severe encephalitis ^Footnote6. Congenital infection can result in abortion or stillbirth, and live births may demonstrate the congenital toxoplasmosis syndrome - mental retardation, malformation, retinochoroiditis, strabismus, nystagmus, microphthalmia, and cataracts ^{Footnote6Footnote7}. Severity of transplacental infection is inversely proportional to gestational age, but the rate of vertical transmission is more frequent as the pregnancy progresses ^Footnote7. Persisting tissue cysts in a victim’s brain may cause psychosis ^Footnote8. Ocular toxoplasmosis is responsible for 30% – 60% of retinochoroiditis cases ^Footnote6.

Awful Human Tragedy 

Read More and/or Listen To Talk Show Below -

Important Editor's Note

Canadians should be terribly concerned as their government research (above) in this area falls way short of the scientific studies, reports, policies and conclusions by international authorities. Consider the Official US - Centre Disease Control - concludes that  toxoplasmosis is the second leading cause of foodborne deaths, and we can only isolate and report ONE???

That makes no sense whatsoever as the comparative gap between US and Canadian findings is just too large. Someone must be wrong, and given the other international research, the weight of evidence clearly favours the American conclusions. Begging the next question: Why are we so far behind in this area?

Australian Federal Government Meanwhile Spending $1 Billion To Eradicate Feral Cats 

As feral cats are the primary source of the parasite - toxoplasma gondii that creates the the "toxoplasmosis disease" in warm blooded animals, Australia has put this issue on the front burner with near drastic measures to clean up this health and economic problem in their country. Again this suggests that the Canadian research and reports leave much to be desired in light of growing international awareness and stiff actions.

Moreover, the hype and crazy concerns are now being raised in more "unreliable secondary media sources" , that are unfettered and uncensored zanny Americans (Listen to the Radio Cast below) by vested or special interests. Normally we would take such overly dramatic discussions in earnest, but unfortunately there is a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests that even in its latent form this parasite is actually eating away at our neurological connectors and structure. 

Whatever it is up to - it simply can't be good for the hosts, and in fact could be the doomsday bug many have predicted in the past. A very scary nightmare coming true... 

  

What Some Pundits Now Call 
"The Zombie Virus" 

Listen Here To find Out Why

TRUTH DENIED?

Funny? Crazy? True?Zany?

#Toronto Сумасшедший кот леди Not Alone - #toxoplasmosis

Как Ваш кот делает вас с ума 

Смотреть видео 

Ярослав Флегр нет псих. И все же, в течение многих лет, он подозревал, что его ум был захвачен паразитов, которые вторглись в его мозг. Так плодовитым биолог взял его научно-фантастический предчувствие в лабораторию. То, что он сейчас открывать поразит вас. Может, перевозимые домашних кошек крошечные организмы быть ползучей в наши мозги, заставляя все от автомобильных аварий с шизофренией? 

Атлантический - Кэтлин Маколайфф 



Никто не станет обвинять Ярослав Флегр быть конформистом. Себя называет "неаккуратным комод," 53-летний чешский ученый имеет созерцательный воздух кем-то по привычке в раздумье, и его до сих пор-юношеского, с квадратной челюстью лицо в обрамлении вьющихся рыжих волос, которая окружает его голову, как кольцо огня. 

Конечно мышление Flegr является раздражающе нетрадиционным. С начала 1990-х годов, он начал подозревать, что одноклеточные паразиты в семье простейших тонко манипулировать его личность, в результате чего он себя в странных, часто самоубийственных способов. И если это было возиться с его умом, рассуждал он, это был, вероятно, делает то же самое для других. 

Паразит, который выделяется кошек в их фекалиях, называется Токсоплазма (T.gondii, или Toxo для краткости) и является микроб, который вызывает токсоплазмоз-причину беременные женщины сказали, чтобы избежать ящики для мусора кошек. С 1920-х годов, врачи признали, что женщина, которая заражается во время беременности может передавать болезнь плода, в некоторых случаях приводит к серьезному повреждению мозга или смерти. Т. гондий также представляет серьезную угрозу для людей с ослабленным иммунитетом: в первые дни эпидемии СПИДа, прежде были разработаны хорошие антиретровирусные препараты, она была виновата в слабоумия, что, страдающего много пациентов в конечной стадии этого заболевания. Здоровые дети и взрослые, однако, как правило, не испытывают ничего хуже, чем короткие гриппоподобные симптомы, прежде чем быстро отбивается от простейших, которые после этого дремлет клетки-либо внутри мозга, по крайней мере, это стандартная медицинская мудрость. 

Но если Flegr правильно, "скрытая" паразит может спокойно настройки связи между нашими нейронами, изменение наш ответ на пугающие ситуации, нашей веры в других, как исходящий нас, и даже наши предпочтения для определенных запахов. И это еще не все. Он также считает, что организм способствует ДТП, самоубийств и психических расстройств, таких как шизофрения. Когда вы сложите все различные способы это может нанести вред нам, говорит Flegr, "Toxoplasma могут даже убить столько людей, как малярия, или, по крайней мере, миллион человек в год." 

Эволюционный биолог Карлова университета в Праге, Flegr проводит эту теорию в течение многих десятилетий в относительной безвестности. Потому что он борется с английского и не так много собеседник даже на своем родном языке, он редко ездит в научных конференциях. Это "может быть одной из причин, моя теория не лучше известных," говорит он. И, по его мнению, его взгляды могут пригласить глубокую оппозицию. "Существует сильное психологическое сопротивление к тому, что поведение человека может быть под влиянием какой-то глупой паразита," говорит он. "Никто не любит чувствовать себя как марионетка. Рецензенты [из моих научных работ], возможно, были оскорблены. "Еще более очевидная причина для сопротивления, конечно, является то, что понятия Flegr звучат ужасно много, как бахрома науки, прямо там с НЛО и претензий дельфинов телепатически общающихся людей. 

Но после многих лет игнорируются или со скидкой, Flegr начинает получать респектабельность. Психоделический как его требования не звучало, многие исследователи, в том числе таких крупных имен в неврологии как Стэнфорда Роберт Sapolsky, думаю, что он вполне может быть на что-то. Flegr в "исследования также проводятся, и я вижу, нет оснований сомневаться в их," Sapolsky говорит мне. Действительно, последние данные от лабораторных и британских групп Sapolsky предполагают, что паразит способен чрезвычайных махинаций. Т. гондий, сообщает Sapolsky, может превратить сильное врожденное отвращение крысы, кошкам в аттракцион, заманивая его в пасть его No. 1 хищника. Еще более удивительно то, как она делает это: организм повторно едет цепей в частях мозга, которые имеют дело с такими первобытными эмоциями, как страх, тревога, и сексуальное возбуждение. "В целом," говорит Sapolsky, "это дикий, причудливый нейробиологии." Другой академический тяжеловес, который берет Flegr серьезно это шизофрения эксперт Е. Фуллер Торри, директор Стэнли-исследовательского института медицинской, в штате Мэриленд. "Я восхищаюсь Ярослав для этого [этого исследования]," говорит он. "Очевидно, что это не политкорректно, в том смысле, что не многие лаборатории делают это. Он сделал это в основном самостоятельно, с очень небольшой поддержкой. Я думаю, что это имеет глядя на. Я считаю, это совершенно достоверными ". 

Более того, многие эксперты считают, Т. гондий может быть далеко не единственным микроскопического кукольника, способного тянуть наши струны. "Я думаю, что есть очень большое количество других примеров этого происходит у млекопитающих, с паразитами мы никогда даже не слышали о", говорит Sapolsky. 

Знакомый для большинства из нас, конечно, является вирус бешенства. На грани убийства собаки, летучей мыши или другого теплокровного хозяина, это мешает животное в ярость, одновременно переходе от нервной системы к слюне существа, гарантируя, что когда хозяева укусы, вирус будет жить в новый носитель. Но в стороне от бешенства, рассказы паразитов реквизиции поведение больших мозгом млекопитающих встречаются редко. В гораздо более распространенными жертвами паразитарные ум контроль, по крайней мере те, о которых мы знаем, рыба, ракообразные, и легионы насекомых, в соответствии с Дженис Мур, поведенческого биолог Университета штата Колорадо. "Мухи, муравьи, гусеницы, осы, вы называете его, есть грузовики с ними ведут себя странно в результате паразитов", говорит она. 

Рассмотрим Polysphincta gutfreundi, паразитический оса, что хватается за державу паука и придает крошечный яйцо в его живот.Червеобразный личинка выходит из яйца, а затем выпускает химикаты, которые подскажут паука отказаться ткачество свою знакомую спиральную паутину и вместо раскрутки своего шелковую нить на специальном шаблоне, который будет содержать кокон, в котором личинка созревает."Обладал" паук даже крючком определенную геометрическую конструкцию в сетку, маскируя кокон от хищников осы. 

Ну, что рассказывает все, как есть ....

#USA - Feral Cats Creating Major Health Concern

US Feral cats spreading ‘serious public health diseases ‘

Wildlife Extra News

Free-roaming cats pose threat from

 "serious public health diseases"

September 2012. A new study in the USA has found that free-roaming cats pose a threat from "serious public health diseases" to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife.

"This is a significant study that documents serious wildlife and public health issues associated with 125 million outdoor cats in the United States. Decision-making officials need to start looking at the unintended impacts these animals have on both the environment and human health when they consider arguments to sanction Trap, Neuter, and Return (TNR) cat colonies. These colonies are highly detrimental to cats, wildlife, and people, and only serve to exacerbate the cat overpopulation problem," said Darin Schroeder, Vice President for Conservation Advocacy at American Bird Conservancy.

Among the key findings of the paper are:

• Free roaming cats are an important source of animal-transmitted, serious diseases such as rabies, toxoplasmosis, and plague.
• 
  
• Free roaming cats account for the most cases of human rabies exposure among domestic animals, and are the source for one-third of rabies post-exposure treatments in the United States. Because of inconsistent incident reporting, that number is likely an underestimate of the actual cases of rabies exposure.
• 
  
• Trap, neuter, and release (TNR) programs may lead to increased, un-inoculated populations of cats that can serve as a source of transmittable serious diseases. 
• 
  

• The study found that since 1988, rabies has been detected more frequently in cats than in dogs; in 2008, the number of cats detected with rabies was four times higher than dogs. In 2010, rabies cases declined for all domestic animals except cats, which comprised 62 percent of all rabies cases for domestic animals.

According to the study, which cites numerous specific examples of rabies exposures from cats, ".......human exposure to rabies is largely associated with free-roaming cats because of people being more likely to come into contact with cats, [the existence of] large free-roaming cat populations and lack of stringent rabies vaccination programs."

TNR

Importantly, the study also seems to directly contradict notions that TNR programs lead to smaller sizes of cat colonies and that they pose no health risk. Those programs purport to capture all the cats in a colony, neuter and vaccinate them, and return them to a colony that is fed by volunteers.

"....neutered groups (colonies) increased significantly compared to [sexually] intact groups because of higher immigration and lower emigration. .........sexually intact adult cats immigrated into the neutered groups at a significantly higher rate than [they did to the] sexually intact group. .........immigrating sexually intact females had increased fertility along with increased survivorship of kittens as a population compensation response to neutered individuals."

The authors report that the data suggest that neutered cat groups act as an attractant of sexually intact free-roaming cats, thus negating the belief that TNR programs lead to decreases in free-roaming cat populations. This attraction and subsequent movement of unneutered and un-inoculated cats into cat colonies "...may severely limit the protection offered by vaccination of TNR processed cats and would not abate the [transmittable disease] threat of rabies in these groups."

Feeding stations attract raccoons, foxes and skunks - Increasing disease spread

The report also cited the dangers associated with TNR feeding stations in attracting raccoons, skunks, foxes, and other wild animals associated with rabies. The feeding stations not only increase the likelihood of contact between humans and rabies-exposed animals, they also increase the human and wildlife exposure to a potentially fatal parasite, raccoon roundworm, harboured by raccoons that is being seen in ever-increasing parts of the country. The danger to wildlife was illustrated in a 2008 study that found that five Florida panthers were killed as a result of a single such infected cat.

Acute toxoplasmosis

Another significant disease threat cited by the study concerns is a parasite frequently found in water or soil contaminated by cat faeces. This parasite is responsible for causing the disease toxoplasmosis. Consequences of contracting this parasitic infection are most serious if you are either pregnant, HIV positive, or are undergoing chemo-therapy treatment, and range from significant to severe to fatal. The report cited a 2011 study that found that 63 percent of the patients with acute toxoplasmosis had become infected through cat faeces.

The authors conclude by saying that their study "...highlights the serious public health diseases associated with free-roaming cats and underscores the need for increased public health attention directed towards free-roaming cats." The fact that rabies exposure in humans is disproportionately associated with free-roaming cats "...should be of paramount concern to health officials because of the high mortality rate of clinical rabies..."

The study was published in the peer-reviewed public health journal, Zoonoses and Public Health. 

The paper was authored by R.W. Gerhold of the University of Tennessee's Center for Wildlife Health, Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, and by D.A. Jessup, retired from the California Department of Fish and Game.

Of Feral Cats and Trojan Horses?

#Toxo Discovery Opens Doors to Malaria Treatment

Discovery opens new pathways or treatment of toxoplasmosis and malaria

Medical News - Indiana University 

A newly identified protein and other proteins it interacts with could become effective targets for new drugs to control the parasite that cause toxoplasmosis, researchers led by investigators at Indiana University School of Medicine have reported.

The discovery could also open new research pathways for treatments for malaria. The researchers determined that the protein, an enzyme called GCN5b, is necessary for the Toxoplasma parasite to replicate, so interfering with its activities could control the parasite. GCN5b is part of the molecular machinery that turns genes on and off in the parasite, working with other proteins that, the researchers discovered, are more plant-like than their counterparts in humans.

"GCN5b is a very different protein than its human counterpart, and proteins it interacts with are not found in humans," said William J. Sullivan Jr., Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology.

"That's what makes this exciting -- rather than just having one enzyme that we could go after, there could be a whole collection of associated enzyme components that could be potentially targeted for drug therapies to control this parasite," he said. In discovering that some of the proteins interacting with GCN5b are plant-like transcription factors -- proteins that bind to DNA -- the researchers filled in what had been a missing link explaining how the parasites control the process of turning genes on and off, known as gene expression. The plant-like transcription factors recruit the GCN5b enzyme complex to activate a wide variety of genes for expression.

When the research team disabled the GCN5b complex, parasite replication swiftly came to a halt. Dr. Sullivan and his colleagues reported their findings in the Jan. 2, 2014, online edition of the journal PLOS Pathogens.

An estimated 60 million people in the United States are infected with the toxoplasmosis parasite, but in most cases the infection produces flu-like symptoms or no symptoms at all. However, for people with immune system problems - such as those undergoing chemotherapy or people with AIDS - the disease can cause serious effects including lung problems, blurred vision and seizures. Also, infants born to mothers who are infected for the first time during or shortly before pregnancy are at risk for severe complications, miscarriages or stillbirths.

One of the most common routes to human infection is via cats, in particular their feces or litter. Eating undercooked meat from infected livestock can also result in human infection.

Although there are anti-parasitic drugs available to treat acute episodes of toxoplasmosis, it's currently impossible to completely eliminate the parasite because it can switch from an active to a latent cyst form in the body. Since GCN5b is active during both acute and latent stages, the enzyme and its associating components are very promising candidates for drug targeting, Dr. Sullivan said. Because the transcription factors are plant-like proteins not found in humans, drugs targeting them would be much less likely to affect human proteins and cause adverse effects.

Researchers also use Toxoplasma as a model organism for the malaria parasitePlasmodium, meaning much of what is learned about Toxoplasma could lead to new treatments for a disease that struck an estimated 207 million people worldwide in 2012 and caused an estimated 627,000 deaths, most of them children. 

Dr. Sullivan noted that the malaria parasite also possesses a GCN5 enzyme, as well as the plant-like proteins.

Warning!

Do Not Watch If You Are Subject Extreme Reactions 

#Toxo Ties To Mental Illness Affirmed!

Research Supports Toxoplasmosis Link to Schizophrenia

by Sreeraman 

Scientists have discovered how the toxoplasmosis parasite may trigger the development of schizophrenia and other bipolar disorders.

The team from the University of Leeds' Faculty of Biological Sciences (UK) has shown that the parasite may play a role in the development of these disorders by affecting the production of dopamine - the chemical that relays messages in the brain controlling aspects of movement, cognition and behaviour. 

Toxoplasmosis, which is transmitted via cat faeces (found on unwashed vegetables) and raw or undercooked infected meat, is relatively common, with 10-20% of the UK population and 22% of the US population estimated to carry the parasite as cysts. Most people with the parasite are healthy, but for those who are immune-suppressed - and particularly for pregnant women - there are significant health risks that can occasionally be fatal. 

Dr Glenn McConkey, lead researcher on the project, says: "Toxoplasmosis changes some of the chemical messages in the brain, and these changes can have an enormous effect on behaviour. Studies have shown there is a direct statistical link between incidences of schizophrenia and toxoplasmosis infection and our study is the first step in discovering why there is this link." 

The parasite infects the brain by forming a cyst within its cells and produces an enzyme called tyrosine hydroxylase, which is needed to make dopamine. Dopamine's role in mood, sociability, attention, motivation and sleep patterns are well documented and schizophrenia has long been associated with dopamine, which is the target of all schizophrenia drugs on the market. 

The team has recently received $250,000 (£160,000) to progress its research from the US-based Stanley Medical Research Institute, which focuses on mental health conditions and has a particular emphasis on bipolar illnesses. 

Dr McConkey says: "It's highly unlikely that we will find one definitive trigger for schizophrenia as there are many factors involved, but our studies will provide a clue to how toxoplasmosis infection - which is more common than you might think - can impact on the development of the condition in some individuals. 

"In addition, the ability of the parasite to make dopamine implies a potential link with other neurological conditions such as Parkinson's Disease, Tourette's syndrome and attention deficit disorders, says Dr McConkey. "We'd like to extend our research to look at this possibility more closely."

Read more: Research Supports Toxoplasmosis Link to Schizophrenia http://www.medindia.net/news/research-supports-toxoplasmosis-link-to-schizophrenia-48601-1.htm#ixzz3HFS5MjRk

Ever wonder... are we all going crazy?

#Toronto Crazy Cat Lady Not Alone - #toxoplasmosis

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy

Watch Video

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia?

The Atlantic - KATHLEEN MCAULIFFE

NO ONE WOULD accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 53-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair that encircles his head like a ring of fire.

Certainly Flegr’s thinking is jarringly unconventional. Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others.

The parasite, which is excreted by cats in their feces, is called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) and is the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis—the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.

But if Flegr is right, the “latent” parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents. And that’s not all. He also believes that the organism contributes to car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. When you add up all the different ways it can harm us, says Flegr, “Toxoplasma might even kill as many people as malaria, or at least a million people a year.”

An evolutionary biologist at Charles University in Prague, Flegr has pursued this theory for decades in relative obscurity. Because he struggles with English and is not much of a conversationalist even in his native tongue, he rarely travels to scientific conferences. That “may be one of the reasons my theory is not better known,” he says. And, he believes, his views may invite deep-seated opposition. “There is strong psychological resistance to the possibility that human behavior can be influenced by some stupid parasite,” he says. “Nobody likes to feel like a puppet. Reviewers [of my scientific papers] may have been offended.” Another more obvious reason for resistance, of course, is that Flegr’s notions sound an awful lot like fringe science, right up there with UFO sightings and claims of dolphins telepathically communicating with humans.

But after years of being ignored or discounted, Flegr is starting to gain respectability. Psychedelic as his claims may sound, many researchers, including such big names in neuroscience as Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky, think he could well be onto something. Flegr’s “studies are well conducted, and I can see no reason to doubt them,” Sapolsky tells me. Indeed, recent findings from Sapolsky’s lab and British groups suggest that the parasite is capable of extraordinary shenanigans. T. gondii, reports Sapolsky, can turn a rat’s strong innate aversion to cats into an attraction, luring it into the jaws of its No. 1 predator. Even more amazing is how it does this: the organism rewires circuits in parts of the brain that deal with such primal emotions as fear, anxiety, and sexual arousal. “Overall,” says Sapolsky, “this is wild, bizarre neurobiology.” Another academic heavyweight who takes Flegr seriously is the schizophrenia expert E. Fuller Torrey, director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, in Maryland. “I admire Jaroslav for doing [this research],” he says. “It’s obviously not politically correct, in the sense that not many labs are doing it. He’s done it mostly on his own, with very little support. I think it bears looking at. I find it completely credible.”

What’s more, many experts think T. gondii may be far from the only microscopic puppeteer capable of pulling our strings. “My guess is that there are scads more examples of this going on in mammals, with parasites we’ve never even heard of,” says Sapolsky.

Familiar to most of us, of course, is the rabies virus. On the verge of killing a dog, bat, or other warm-blooded host, it stirs the animal into a rage while simultaneously migrating from the nervous system to the creature’s saliva, ensuring that when the host bites, the virus will live on in a new carrier. But aside from rabies, stories of parasites commandeering the behavior of large-brained mammals are rare. The far more common victims of parasitic mind control—at least the ones we know about—are fish, crustaceans, and legions of insects, according to Janice Moore, a behavioral biologist at Colorado State University. “Flies, ants, caterpillars, wasps, you name it—there are truckloads of them behaving weirdly as a result of parasites,” she says.

Consider Polysphincta gutfreundi, a parasitic wasp that grabs hold of an orb spider and attaches a tiny egg to its belly. A wormlike larva emerges from the egg, and then releases chemicals that prompt the spider to abandon weaving its familiar spiral web and instead spin its silk thread into a special pattern that will hold the cocoon in which the larva matures. The “possessed” spider even crochets a specific geometric design in the net, camouflaging the cocoon from the wasp’s predators.

Well that's telling it like it is....