Now that’s a headline you don’t see every day.
Having partially developed inside caterpillars, the larvae of the wasps manipulate their hosts into watching over them as a mother or bodyguard might.
A team that has done extensive field studies with infected caterpillars say they have the first conclusive proof that the manipulative behaviour of some parasitoids increases their chance of survival.
The parasitoid wasp Glyptapanteles lays its eggs, about 80 at a time, in young geometrid caterpillars. The eggs hatch and the larvae feed on the caterpillar’s body fluids. When they are fully developed, they eat through the caterpillar’s skin, attach themselves to a nearby branch or leaf and wrap themselves up in a cocoon.
That premise was the central part of Dead Rising, a game for the 360.
All the zombies had wasp larvae in their brains.
Besides the egg laying part, how is this any different than what women do to men?