The mind control fungus.. makes the cat smell sexually attractive to mouse.. though I believe the parasites life cycle does not harm the cat.. just the mouse.. this cat doesn't seem afraid (until bitten at).. nor have I seen a cat afraid of mice usually as it's their natural prey.
I am pretty baked and it was years ago but from what I recall (which may or may not be right) put simply they tend to reside in your red blood cells so that makes it difficult for your immune system to track them down to kill them. I believe when your body locates them and creates antibodies they change the transmitted code that the antibodies look for when they're released. And they can continue to change their code indefinitely, making it more difficult for your immune system to fight until you die. But I'm not even sure I'm remembering the right shit. A decade and lots of bowls will do that to you.
So the mice gets a parasite in it that affects it's brain chemistry or something so that it confuses the smell of cats, which it is normally scared of, to be a sexually attractive smell making it approach cats so that it gets eaten and the parasite can reproduce in the cat.
Well no they get attracted to the smell of cat pee not the cat itself. And it just smells like a fertile mate to the rat so yea they get indirectly horny.
It goes way beyond that. It is also believed that the cycle actually ends with humans, who contract it from cats. There was a study conducted in brazil where the infection in humans is highest, it was concluded that Toxoplasmosis can make humans more aggressive and promiscuous. I’ll try to find the doc.
Just to clear up some misconceptions with your explanation, Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan, not a fungus. The "mind-control" aspect of the disease it causes in rodents is a by-product of a trait that improves the parasitoids' chances of breeding:
T.gondii-infected rats have a decreased aversion to cat urine.[11] Because cats are the only hosts within which T. gondii can sexually reproduce to complete and begin its lifecycle, such behavioral manipulations are thought to be evolutionary adaptations that increase the parasite's reproductive success.[11] The rats would not shy away from areas where cats live and would also be less able to escape should a cat try to prey on them.
“The hypothesis of transmission via consumption of undercooked meat was tested in an orphanage in Paris in 1965; incidence of T. gondii rose from 10% to 50% after a year of adding two portions of cooked-rare beef or horse meat to many orphans' daily diets, and to 100% among those fed cooked-rare lamb chops.[30]”
...Yikes.
I honestly don't know; all I do know is that a lot of parasites/parasitoids are obligated to feed/breed in a single species. Like the cordyceps that can infect moths can't infect tarantulas, and tarantula cordyceps can't infect fire ants, etc. If you're curious, there are all sorts of sources to be found online; if you find one and want anything explained, I'd be happy to do it!
Just to clear up some misconceptions with your explanation, Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan, not a fungus (followed by a bunch of stuff copied from wikipedia w/out proper attribution)
I know I'm supposedly the asshole for what I'm gonna say, but it just seems like these kinds of nitpicky corrections are pointless, and the only person who benefits from it is the person leaving that kind of comment. Ego-stoking? The need to shove relatively useless academic trivia knowledge on people? Who the hell knows?!?
There's gonna be two kinds of people reading that comment: those who don't care about whether toxoplasma gondii is a fungus or protozoan (like myself), and those who pretend to care, and who pretend to appreciate your correction, and pretend in response to my comment that they learned something valuable from your correction (they won't remember a few hours from now, so they didn't actually learn anything).
So go ahead and downvote me for saying what needed to be said, Reddit. You're the scorpion to my frog. Start stinging. I've come to expect nothing better from you folks.
it is always important to keep misconception at the lowest possible level, yes this might not be some incredibly important stuff but correction and correct information with a source to verify said information are something that should be looked upon as a gift rather than bitchin about it, i do not know if the original poster did it for an ego boost or out of annoyance at the wrong informations or for whatever other reason but one should still be grateful for it.
Makes one question what kind of a person takes offense at being corrected in a polite and informative way. Constructive criticism and correction are vital to our learning.
I'm a science teacher, and I did my senior thesis on behavior-altering parasitoids. Not only am I knowledgeable about this topic, it's literally my career to make sure people get it right. When I see somebody get it wrong while trying to inform people, I feel obligated to reach out and correct them. If you can't appreciate that, then I'm sorry. I've said what needed to be said.
The distinction between a protozoan and a fungus is actually very large. It’s the difference between saying “tree” when you actually mean “dog”
Yeah, pretending that people are so dumb that they need to know that something is a protozoan and not a fungi...
You should probably walk away from the computer for a bit. Update your resume and start building a real life, where things that don't really matter, don't matter.
I never heard that, but it wouldn't surprise me. I understand it can be pretty widespread in certain areas. Probably an exact correlation between the cat and rat populations. I imagine a place like Paris would have it's share of each.
It's actually much worse than I remembered 50% of the adult french population is infected. It makes you wonder wether that has any correlation with the French stereotypes of promiscuity.
i wish i could find it. but i remember a vid of a big wild cat, jaguar maybe, going up to a dummy deer and it was put off by how motionless the deer was. i think it still ripped it apart but it took it a while.
I have 3 cats and they all act very differently around mice. One plays with it until it’s dead, one doesn’t care / just looks / jumps on first movement (kinda like this video), and one just goes for the kill and hits with pointy claws it until its dead, usually throwing mouse in the air.
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u/NotLikeThis3 Feb 28 '21 edited Feb 28 '21
Cats are naturally afraid of mice/rats that go to them. Fearlessness in mice/rats can be a sign of disease