Over the last few days , a picture of a snail infested by a mind - controlling leech has get viral . The rhythmical movement and color of the sponger inside the transparent beast had many liken it to a ranter terpsichore to beats with glow sticks on their tree branch .
The television was shoot in Changhua County , Taiwan , earlier this month byLin Ruian , who was hiking through the forest . The footage then spread out on the internet , where it lost its original accreditation and made its way to Reddit . There , it was pick up by life scientist Mike Inouye , who post it on Twitter and it quickly went viral . It has now been get a line 6 million clock time .
The pulsating sponger in question look to be from the genusLeucochloridium , a clever platyhelminth that uses gastropods like snails as an intermediate host . What we see here is the larval stage of the insect . Once it infects the snail , the parasite deal over the invertebrate , getting in the eyestalks and head .
Infected snail have been witnessed to expend more metre in higher and/or sunstruck places , making them more likely to succumb to predation from birds . To make it even more potential , the larvae search like maggots or caterpillars , with their rhythmical movement bound to attract the attention of skirt . The pulsation seems to be concern to the amount of light they receive , grant tosome researchconducted on the green - banded broodsac ( Leucochloridium paradoxum ) a few years ago in Poland .
Once a bird has its filling of infected escargot , this parasite enters adulthood . Inside the hiss ’s gastrointestinal parcel of land , theLeucochloridium larvaemature and release eggs . These testis are then excreted by the razzing . And approximate who terminate up eating the eggs ? You ’re right , the escargot . And the cycle restarts anew .
Infected snail have been dub zombi snail , as they incautiously put themselves in injury way on the behest of the flatworm so that the parasite can exhibit its aggressive mimicry behaviour . Usually , fast-growing mimicry has the predatory animal pretend to be someone else ’s fair game , fritter away victims into becoming their meals . But not for theLeucochloridium , they want to be wipe out .
