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A Horror Movie Concept Comes to Life
A parasitic worm that controls its host’s mind
We humans have quite the imagination and have created countless worlds and infinite stories using it. The only entity that challenges our creativity and, indeed, often inspires it is Nature Herself. There’s a reason people say, “You can’t make this up,” after experiencing something unusual or bizarre.
Such as the topic for this article. Nature created something so terrifying and unnerving that I wouldn’t want to make it up. There are parasites in nature capable of hijacking a host’s mind and making them commit suicide. Scientists have known about the phenomenon for a while but hadn’t learned how the parasites manage to take over their host. But new research seeks to change that, and what they found is nearly as strange as the behavior.
The Parasite
Unfortunately, many parasites can control their hosts, but the horsehair worm, aka gordian worms, has the spotlight in this article. Like their namesake, horsehair worms are spaghetti-like worms resembling a horse's hair. Adult worms grow to be .04 inches in diameter and up to one foot ( 24 cm) or more long in the guts of their host. The genus studied in the research I’ll tell you about soon can nearly reach three feet (one meter).
