(June 9, 2012 at 2:26 am)popeyespappy Wrote: . They create mind controlled zombies.
Zombie shroms anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyc...ilateralis
Sacculina is a crustacean turning another crustacean into a zombie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacculina
The truly freakish thing about sacculina is not how completely it controls the crab it parasitizes. It is the truly amazing metamorphosis, totally unparalleled in any other animal we know of, that the parasite itself goes through to accomplish the task. Basically the sacculina starts as a full fledged shrimp like arthropod. It lateches onto the crab and drills through a weak spot on the crab shell to injects a few of its own cells into the crab. The cells than grow into fugus like endoparasite that literally sends tendrils into every part of the crab's body to control every aspect of the Shelly's bio and neuro chemistry. It will even change the crab's sex, so the crab will enable the parasite to grow, and spawn.
This metamorphosis from a full fledged athropod adult into fugus like endoparasite is indeed very challenging to explain.
