Real Life Mind-Controlling Parasites
Nature's Puppet Masters
A species of fungus belonging to the genus Cordyceps has the ability to enter the bodies of ants, as spores, and then slowly grow mycelia (fine fungal filaments) throughout the ant's body, absorbing its soft tissues, while avoiding its vital organs. When the fungus is ready to reproduce, it then grows into the ant's brain, where it produces chemicals that alter the host's brain chemistry. This then causes the ant to climb up a blade of grass or a tall plant and then clamp its mandibles down into it. There, the ant rests, while the fungus begins to devour its brain, thereby killing the host. Once finished, the fungus sprouts out of the ant's carcass through gaps in its exoskeleton. The sprouted fungus then releases its spores into the area nearby, where it can infect other ants who happen to pass by.
While some mind influencing parasites eventually kill their hosts by devouring them or leeching off of them to the point of death, others sometimes kill their hosts by forcing them to commit outright suicide. One such parasite is a nematomorph hairworm by the name of Spinochordodes tellinii, which is a worm that actually invades the bodies of various insects, including grasshoppers. When this parasite finds a way into a host, it spends most of its time feeding on the host's insides. Upon growing to a certain length, the parasite then causes the host to committ suicide by "compelling" it to jump into a nearby body of water to drown itself. After this act is done, the worm's adult form emerges from the carcass of the unfortunate host and becomes a free living aquatic creature that can reproduce in water.
