Zombie snails!

Synopsis of the video : A kind of a parasite controls snail by taking over its nervous system. The parasites causes visible morphological changes in the snail, causing the tentacles/eyes to take on the form of pulsating maggots. The snail, under complete control of the parasites, exposes itself to a bird which mistakes the snails tentacles for maggots and is eaten. Then, the parasites multiply inside the birds stomach and exit as bird droppings... which the snails feed upon. Thus, the parasites find themselves a new snail host and the cycle continues.

Amazing! Parasites taking over and controlling a host sounds like a great idea for a zombie film, if it hasn't been done already.

Well that's disturbing. I Won't be eating bird poo any more.

Similar to the tapeworm I believe. I once read that tapeworm 'segments' are consumed by fish, be it from droppings or such. The fish that are infected with tapeworm get taken over, and instead of swimming for cover when a predator shows up, the fish stays in the open, pretty much with neon signs saying 'eat me!'. And then gets eaten, and so the cycle goes on.

Isn't nature marvellous

Mind you it's a ploy that parasites use quite often,for example the infamous cat parasite (that I can't remember the name of off hand but has been in the spotlight in recent years because so many of us may be infected with !!).In rats it effects the way the respond to the smell of cat urine,instead of a natural fear response they become enboldened and excited making them much more likely to be caught and eaten therefore finding it"s way back to it's preferred host.

Parasites,you gotta love 'em

Reminds me of the 'Alien' series of movies!

reply to post by ColonelSF

Reminds me of the 'Alien' series of movies!

Yeah, but the humans in the movie didn't go around eating alien excrement.