4 Horrifying Parasites and their Hosts

1. The Cockroach & The Emerald Cockroach Wasp

The cockroach has a bad reputation as a dirty, annoying bug and most of us would as soon stomp on them as look at them. Spare a thought for the cockroach though, who, in the wild, is sometimes victim to a bizarre and truly macabre ritual.

The Emerald cockroach wasp is a tiny wasp with unusual, horrifying mating habits. The wasp searches out a cockroach and lands on top of it. It then stings its victim twice. The first sting is in the thoracic ganglion region which mildly paralyzes the front legs of the insect. This facilitates the second sting at a carefully chosen spot in the roach’s brain, in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this second sting, the roach will now fail to produce normal escape responses.
This allows the wasp to then lead her hapless victim to the wasp’s burrow, by pulling one of the roach’s antennae in a manner similar to a leash, riding it like a cowboy rides a horse. Once they reach the burrow the real horror begins. The wasp lays an egg on the roach’s abdomen and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with pebbles, more to keep other predators out than to keep the roach in.

The stung roach, its escape reflex disabled, will simply rest in the burrow as the wasp’s egg hatches. The newly hatched larva wastes no time and like a scene out of Aliens proceeds directly to the nearby roach, chews its way into the abdomen and ever so slowly, over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach’s internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach’s body.
After about four weeks, the fully-grown wasp will emerge from the roach’s body to begin its adult life.

2. The Spotted Rose Snapper Fish & Cymothoa exigua

The Spotted Rose Snapper Fish, which lives off the coast of California, is oft victim to another freaky parasite. The Cymothoa exigua parasite, a type of crustacean, swims into the fish’s mouth and attaches itself at the base of the poor Snappers tongue. It leeches blood from its victim and as it grows, the tongue withers and dies due to lack of blood supply. Eventually when the tongue dies completely, either diminishing or falling off, the parasite then switches places with the stump and acts as a working replacement for the organ, allowing the fish to use it just like a normal tongue.

The parasite spends the rest of its life living off both the fish’s blood and bits of food that enter the fish’s mouth. The Cymothoa exigua is the only parasite known to effectively replace a body organ.

3. The common crab & Sacculina

Imagine having your body invaded, rendered infertile and then used as a mating playground. That’s exactly what happens with the Sacullina barnacle.

They bear no resemblance to the barnacles that cover ships and piers, in fact they resemble more of a gelatinous blob. The female Sacculina larva finds a crab and walks along it until it finds a joint, a weak spot in the crabs armor. It then molts, injecting its soft body into the crab while its discarding its own shell. The Sacculina slowly grows and branches out in the crab like the roots of a tree, eventually emerging as a sac on the underside of the crab’s rear thorax, where normally the crab’s own eggs would be incubated.

When a female Sacculina is implanted in a male crab it will interfere with the crab’s hormonal balance. This sterilizes it and changes the bodily layout of the crab to resemble that of a female crab by widening and flattening its abdomen, among other things. The female Sacculina has even been known to cause the male crabs to perform mating gestures typical of female crabs.

Later, along comes the male Sacculina and finds its counterpart on the underside of a crab. He then enters and fertilizes her eggs. The crab (male or female) having essentially been rewired then cares for the eggs as if they were its own, having been rendered infertile by the parasite.

4. Zombie Snails & Leucochloridium paradoxum

The Amber Snail, like any common snail, eats all sorts of disgusting things. To set the scene, let’s take a look at the Amber Snail. Watch as it inches its way up the leaves of a plant and finally gets to tuck into its reward: a steaming, nutritious pile of bird droppings. MmmHmm! Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the snail, it’s also consuming hundreds of unborn flatworm eggs. The eggs hatch out in the following days and grow into a somewhat larger parasite which then moves into the snails two antennae, vastly enlarging them in the process. This means that the snail is unable to retract entirely into its shell.

It gets worse. The flatworm, not content with taking over the snails body, also takes over its mind. It’s not entirely known how it does so, suffice to say it modifies the snails behavior and the snail, contrary to its nature, now wants to seek out open, exposed areas. So up it goes, inching its way into the canopy above, finally resting in an open area as the perfect target. It’s even complete with enlarged, pulsating antennae. Along comes a hungry bird which plucks off the antennae, usually leaving the snail relatively unharmed (it can regenerate new appendages).

The flatworm slowly matures into its sexual stage and lays its eggs in the birds gut. The bird, flies along and goes about its business, leaving droppings on the leaves of the flora. Along comes a snail to feast on this juicy morsel, and the cycle continues..

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