More Parasitic Mind Control

The story of the mind-controlling hairworm and The Loom article about the effects of toxoplasmosis on rats leaves me looking for more examples. In the process of Googling, I found this article from an '01 issue of the Journal of Arachnology. Get this, there's a parasitic wasp in Costa Rica that preys on spiders and sufficiently alters the physiology (mind, whatever) of the host spider to the extent that it causes it to spin special, radically different and hithertofore unspun webs for the sake of the wasp larvae...

UNDER THE INFLUENCE: WEBS AND BUILDING BEHAVIOR OF PLESIOMETA ARGYRA (ARANEAE, TETRAGNATHIDAE) WHEN PARASITIZED BY HYMENOEPIMECIS ARGYRAPHAGA (HYMENOPTERA, ICHNEUMONIDAE)

William G. Eberhard: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Escuela deBiologı´a, Universidad de Costa Rica, Ciudad Universitaria, Costa Rica. 2001. The Journal of Arachnology 29:354–366

"On the evening that it will kill its host, the orb-weaving spider Plesiometa argyra, thelarva of the ichneumonid wasp Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga induces the spider to perform highly stereotypedconstruction behavior and build an otherwise unique ‘‘cocoon web’’ that is particularly well designed to support the wasp larva’s cocoon."

link

(Ichneumonidae = Just plain evil)