A new study uncovers liver flukes' savvy manipulation of ants, making them climate-aware zombies

In this intricate lifecycle, the liver fluke first targets an ant, manipulating its brain to make it clamp onto a blade of grass. This positions the ant to be consumed by its next host, typically a grazing animal like a cow, sheep, or deer. While the ant waits, a multitude of liver flukes nestle in its abdomen, ready for transmission.

When a grazer finally ingests the infected ant, the liver fluke controlling the ant's brain is destroyed by the host's stomach acid. However, the remaining flukes in the ant's abdomen are safeguarded by a capsule that dissolves only in the intestine, allowing them to travel through bile ducts into the liver. There, they mature into adult flukes and start laying eggs, which are eventually expelled through the host animal's feces.

These fluke eggs lie dormant on the ground until a snail happens by and consumes them. Inside the snail, the eggs morph into larval flukes and reproduce asexually, potentially multiplying into several thousand. To complete their lifecycle and find their next ant host, the larval flukes induce the snail to cough them out, encapsulated in a ball of mucus. Attracted to this mucus, ants consume it and become the new carriers of the liver fluke larvae, thus continuing the life cycle.

That's a very complex parasitic life cycle. I had no idea a life cycle could involve multiple animals like this.

I know there is no “good or bad” in the circle of life, but parasitic behaviour like this is downright horrifying.