5 Awesome Parasites That Torture Animals (That I Hate)
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.
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.
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.
"Somehow the toilet paper roll is on the wrong way again. Just a heads up."
What a dumb way to die.
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.
Parades need candy.
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
"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
"Don't you look at me. Don't you dare look at me."
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.
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.
Look at that stupid spider.
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.
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
"Girls night!"
You win, thing.
