Wasps That Turn Spiders in to Zombie Construction Workers - Polidicks

[QUOTE]When the female wasp is ready to lay her egg, she seeks out a spider to help raise her child. She stings the spider to paralyze it and then lays an egg on its abdomen. Soon, the egg hatches and the larva that emerges remains attached to the spider, living on its abdomen and sucking [I]hemolymph [/I](kind of the arthropod version of blood) from its body for nourishment. [/QUOTE] It gets worse... [URL]http://mentalfloss.com/article/51970/meet-wasp-turns-spiders-zombie-construction-workers[/URL]

Nature sure gets scary sometimes..

Well, I guess that's it then.

[url]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdci0oFNOD1ribnwko1_500.gif[/url] nopenopenopenopenope

That's crazy; however, imagine if there were a form of social wasp that used it's larva to hijack spiders and convince them to help build the wasp's nest. It'd have to be a damn intelligent kind of wasp, with the "mind control" that prevents the spider from attacking the colony during construction, whereas this merely convinces the spider to build it's nest differently.

we're next

[QUOTE=ironman17;41772170]That's crazy; however, imagine if there were a form of social wasp that used it's larva to hijack spiders and convince them to help build the wasp's nest. It'd have to be a damn intelligent kind of wasp, with the "mind control" that prevents the spider from attacking the colony during construction, whereas this merely convinces the spider to build it's nest differently.[/QUOTE] There's a caterpillar that does that with ants.

Oh shit! Queens are real! [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAt43IOCQ3Y[/media]

how does evolution even manage this shit

Anybody got a tip for buying Napalm in bulk? I need enough for, uh, about 51000 square kilometres of land.

[QUOTE]Once the web is done, the spider crawls to the center of the web and sits there complacently. The larva molts, kills the only companion it has ever known, sucks any remaining useful bits out from its corpse, and discards it.[/QUOTE] :downs:

For once in my life I actually feel bad for spiders They are super gross but wasps are just fucking cunts, they give 0 shits and will screw over everything in their path

Naughty Dog got their idea for 'The Last of Us' from a similar concept. There's a spore which acts on ants, causing them to climb to the top of a glade of grass and have their head explode to spread the spore further. Perhaps a zombie apocalypse isn't as unlikely as it seems.

Cordyceps ^.

[t]http://www.halotoynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Halo-3-Flood-Carrier-Form-Screenshot.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=Bloodprime;41772551]Naughty Dog got their idea for 'The Last of Us' from a similar concept. There's a spore which acts on ants, causing them to climb to the top of a glade of grass and have their head explode to spread the spore further. Perhaps a zombie apocalypse isn't as unlikely as it seems.[/QUOTE] I think there was a study of extremely questionable quality that basically said cordyceps-knockoffs exist in quite a few people's brains, but since we don't have ant brains it can't do shit. Would make for a fun story if a villain found a way to abuse that potential. Maybe even have it go out of his control and trigger a Prototype-like Villain Protagonist arc. On a slightly more serious note, "modern" infection zombies no matter their origin are reeeaaally unlikely. They really suck at maintaining whatever is left of their bodies and bites aren't a terribly effective way of spreading the disease.

[video][url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJCGKXM81yY[/url][/video] It does...

This one is still my favorite. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpMGhGMWaTA[/media] Backflip sting!

[QUOTE=RobbL;41772189]we're next[/QUOTE] but who will be the last of us?

Oh, now that is fucking cool. Nature never ceases to amaze me

[QUOTE=Bloodprime;41772551]Naughty Dog got their idea for 'The Last of Us' from a similar concept. There's a spore which acts on ants, causing them to climb to the top of a glade of grass and have their head explode to spread the spore further. Perhaps a zombie apocalypse isn't as unlikely as it seems.[/QUOTE] it's more or less impossible for a fungus to bust through your skull the same way it would with an ant's, so we're pretty much safe for now. i mean, obviously inhaling spores is still generally a bad idea and i'm fairly certain you could maybe get kind of messed up if you did, but it wouldn't be a viable way to propagate more cordyceps so it'd die out very quickly.

[QUOTE=Liem;41772990]Oh, now that is fucking cool. Nature never ceases to amaze me[/QUOTE] No, it is not cool. It negative fucking cool. This is terrifying. Fuck wasps. The only species truly deserving of complete extermination, and the ultimate argument that there is no all-loving God.

[quote]A few weeks later, the adult wasp emerges and flies away, and the cycle starts over.[/quote] We should use the wasps to destroy the spiders. They're clearly superior. And then when they emerge victorious, we'll just exterminate them. With the spiders and the wasps gone, the bees shall emerge as the master race.

[QUOTE=LunchboxOfDoom;41773285]We should use the wasps to destroy the spiders. They're clearly superior. And then when they emerge victorious, we'll just exterminate them. With the spiders and the wasps gone, the bees shall emerge as the master race.[/QUOTE] I think you underestimate how much of a cunt wasps can be.

[QUOTE=bravehat;41773330]I think you underestimate how much of a cunt wasps can be.[/QUOTE] Not enough to save it from large amounts of applied kinetic energy.

[QUOTE=bravehat;41773330]I think you underestimate how much of a cunt wasps can be.[/QUOTE] Parasitic wasps are bros though. [editline]9th August 2013[/editline] Yeah this one is a parasitoid wasp Best wasps.

we can make a colony on the moon right guys? Without this sort of stuff? please shits scary

[QUOTE=LunchboxOfDoom;41773285]We should use the wasps to destroy the spiders. They're clearly superior. And then when they emerge victorious, we'll just exterminate them. With the spiders and the wasps gone, the bees shall emerge as the master race.[/QUOTE] Have fun with your mosquito swarm

[QUOTE=BananaFoam;41773274]No, it is not cool. It negative fucking cool. This is terrifying. Fuck wasps. The only species truly deserving of complete extermination, and the ultimate argument that there is no all-loving God.[/QUOTE] Do wasps even do anything besides fuck other creatures up?

[QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;41772832]This one is still my favorite. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpMGhGMWaTA[/media] Backflip sting![/QUOTE] Love the ant at 0:36 You can see how pissed it gets.