#parasitism — Public Fediverse posts

#TIL that hitchhiker fishes exist AND that at least one species of them sometimes [and this will be #TMI for some of you] ride INSIDE the kloaka of manta rays!!1

yes, that's the toot. please find the link to the article in question in my next toot.

#mantaRay #zoology #parasitism #fauna #hitchhiker

Tapeworm makes #ants live longer: Study identifies molecular changes that reshape aging and behavior in infected workers, leading to a partially queen-like phenotype 👉 https://press.uni-mainz.de/tapeworm-makes-ants-live-longer/

#insects #temnothorax #parasitism #BehavioralEcology #SocialInsects #ant #biology

Tapeworm makes #ants live longer: Study identifies molecular changes that reshape aging and behavior in infected workers, leading to a partially queen-like phenotype 👉 https://press.uni-mainz.de/tapeworm-makes-ants-live-longer/

#insects #temnothorax #parasitism #BehavioralEcology #SocialInsects #ant #biology

Tapeworm makes #ants live longer: Study identifies molecular changes that reshape aging and behavior in infected workers, leading to a partially queen-like phenotype 👉 https://press.uni-mainz.de/tapeworm-makes-ants-live-longer/

#insects #temnothorax #parasitism #BehavioralEcology #SocialInsects #ant #biology

Tapeworm makes #ants live longer: Study identifies molecular changes that reshape aging and behavior in infected workers, leading to a partially queen-like phenotype 👉 https://press.uni-mainz.de/tapeworm-makes-ants-live-longer/

#insects #temnothorax #parasitism #BehavioralEcology #SocialInsects #ant #biology

Tapeworm makes #ants live longer: Study identifies molecular changes that reshape aging and behavior in infected workers, leading to a partially queen-like phenotype 👉 https://press.uni-mainz.de/tapeworm-makes-ants-live-longer/

#insects #temnothorax #parasitism #BehavioralEcology #SocialInsects #ant #biology

Today in the park, I noticed a lot of small flies around this one unhealthy-looking plant, a mint of some kind, that had been put outside the greenhouse. I looked closer to find…a flower crab spider (family Thomisidae, tribe Misumenini) feeding on a plant bug (family Miridae)! The small flies are kleptoparasites trying to get a bite of the spider's meal. It periodically flicked the flies away with its spare legs and moved around to get away from them, in vain.

I don't see flower crab spiders that often so this was a nice find.

#DailySpiderPic #spiders #flies #parasitism #kleptoparasitism #Araneae #Thomisidae #Diptera

i have 2 jobs to do and only enough time left for 1 of them but i just had to pop in to mention this absolute banger of a paper title

"28 minutes later: investigating the role of aflatrem-like compounds in Ophiocordyceps parasite manipulation of zombie ants"

by William C. Beckerson, Courtney Krider, Umar A. Mohammad & Charissa de Bekker in _Animal Behaviour_ (in press) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.06.011 :ClosedAccess:

#ants #parasitism #fungi #sporespondence #Ophiocordyceps #Formicidae #Camponotus

Mystery #parasites on #ZombieAntFungus identified by scientists https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/18/world/zombie-ant-fungus-parasite-mystery-scn/index.html Paper: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/nhn/pimj/pre-prints/content-nbc-persoonia-0645 #fungi #ants #invertebrates #parasitism #insect #insects

“Every time we see these new genera we described growing on the #fungus, the fungus looks pretty beaten up, really consumed... In some cases, it castrates #Ophiocordyceps first, so it cannot shoot the #spores anymore, and then it grows and then consumes the whole fungus.”