Zombie slave-roaches

Insects never cease to amaze me, the more I learn about them the more I am left in awe. Then I came across this amazing Wasp that turns its prey cockroachs into "zombie slaves"

Meet the Parasitic Wasp

Ampulex compressa AKA Jewel wasp

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.

This is all done because the wasp plans to lay its eggs inside the stilll living Roach. The female wasp is too small to carry the Roach to its burrow by its self. It has developed a method to control and the roach and were the Master leads the slave follows unable to do anything eles.

Scientists don't yet fully understand how Ampulex manages these feats.

This is simply amazing behavoir to me. I just hope no Alien lifeforms in the universe have developed along similar lines Well atleast I hope I never meet any that did.



everything2.com...

www.boingboing.net...

That's just...bizarre. But, a great find !! Very interesting !

Lex

Let's just hope those wasps don't mutate in to 12 footers, then we would truly have a problem.

wow... imagine if you could train these wasps to do your bidding, like what they're doing nowadays with bomb and drug sniffing wasps. sure it wouldnt do anything too meaningful but you'd be the life of the party

That, is THE single most scary-assed thing i have EVER heard. Forget ghost footage, 1 metre long millipedes, iraqi desert spiders and the like, THAT is just plain FRIGHTENING.

I mean, it BURROWS into its brain and controls the roach!!!!!

wow... I am gonna have some serious nightmares tonight.

That sounds like a sweet name for a metal band, lol. Thanks for posting this, I've never heard of these things. Insects never cease to amaze me, there's so many to be dicovered still.

The funny part here is that it is not unnormal to see one species controlling another. A certain nematode for instance infects mice's brains, and controls them to a certain degree. This 'control' always leads to the the mouse commiting suicide in one way or another.

Sorry, cant remember the name, just read it in one of my biology books.


And yes, it can infect humans.. (We only get a severe headache though)

the funny thing is they don't need to poison us to keep us acting like zombies/sheep(even though they do with fluoride, chemtrails, etc)..we do it to ourselves

[edit on 15-2-2006 by invisibleplane]

Now that is friggin awesome.

Great find dude

Originally posted by Senor_Vicente
Let's just hope those wasps don't mutate in to 12 footers, then we would truly have a problem.

o man.....i agree with this.....we would all be screwed! lolxz

Awesome find. Could be the single most eerie thing I've read on here. Imagine walking around and ouch! What was that??? Felt like a stinger in the back of my neck and now I have this uncontrolable urge to buy a case of soda pop and place them all on a picnic table open.

slightly off the topic of mind control I read an article somewhere that said scientists have discovered a strain of malaria in remote parts of Indonesia that is extremely deadly and upon the death of the host keeps the body alive for up to two hours. The side effect..extreme violence. Almost like the video game resident evil. I'll see if i can link the article.

Now i don't know which is worse:
The Candiru.
Or this.

Holy shmokes!
Thats amazing, One insect species controlling another, by making it in a zombie
But, all this has a side effect, well i don't really call it a side effect but...
I know the government, i just know they are going to investigate the ''venom/poison'' of the creature, and use it on human species
And i assure you that they're gonna do it, they already can control the human mind, clone, make you invisible and i can go on for a while
I think we'll hear about this the upcoming years, just wait and see
But still, It's cool!!
But i just know the government is gonna use this sweet but still eww-ishh little insect for some bad reason

- MB

[edit on 15-4-2006 by meridian_blood_29387423]

wow... no flags or stars for 6 years... i s and f'ed this.