The crab-castrating parasite that zombifies its prey

May 30, 2014 by Tommy Leung

Meet Sacculina carcini – a barnacle that makes a living as a real-life body-snatcher of crabs. Unlike most barnacles that are happy to simply stick themselves to a rock and filter food from the water, Sacculina and its kin have evolved to be parasitic, and they are horrifyingly good at it.

The microscopic larva of Sacculina seeks out an unsuspecting crab using specialised sensory organs. It then settles on a part of the crab where its armours is most vulnerable, usually on the membrane at the base of one of the crab's hair (called a setae).

The larvae then transforms itself into a kind of living hypodermic syringe (called a kentrogon). This syringe stabs the base of the crab's hair and injects the next stage of the parasite – a microscopic blob called the vermigon – into the crab's bloodstream. This blob will eventually grow into a parasite that takes over the crab's entire body.

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Devil in disguise: Small coral-eating worm may mean big trouble for reefs

Date:

April 11, 2014

Source:

University of Southampton

Summary:

A coral-eating flatworm has been identified as a potential threat for coral reefs. It is barely possible to see the parasitic worm Amakusaplana acroporae when it sits on its favorite hosts, the staghorn coral Acropora, thanks to its excellent camouflage. However, the researchers found that the small flatworm could cause significant damage to coral reefs.

Continued

Parasitic butterfly larvae mimic queen ant to avoid detection

Date:

April 9, 2014

Source:

PLOS

Summary:

Parasitic butterfly larvae may mimic ants' acoustic signals to aid in the infiltration of their host colonies. Ants aggressively defend their colonies and nests, so successfully that these locations make a perfect shelter for another similar species to live in. However, ants have evolved a complex set of signals that allow colony members to distinguish between residents and intruders.

Continued

Wasps v moths: Biocontrol uses nature against crop pests

Blinking in the blazing Brazilian sun, a farmer looks up at the sound of an aeroplane, flying low over his sugarcane plantation in Sao Paulo.

A hatch suddenly opens, and a white cloud emerges.

It may look like pesticide, but these are live eggs falling down - from wasps.

Once hatched and grown, the insects inject their own eggs into those of the sugarcane borer - a moth that in its caterpillar stage eats valuable plants - preventing the pest from hatching.

A number of farmers in Brazil have swapped chemicals for wasps, in a country that has recently outgrown the US as the largest consumer of pesticides.

Sugarcane borers eat the plants and can be detrimental to the plantation

The biotechnology firm that is fighting nature with nature - what is known as biocontrol - is Bug Agentes Biologicos, or simply Bug, based in Piracicaba, Sao Paulo.

"Egg-spraying" from a plane is just a trial - at the moment, the wasps' eggs are put on pieces of cardboard and distributed throughout the field. But Bug wants to start using a plane later this year, once the technology is more reliable.

Bug mass-produces Trichogramma galloi, a breed of wasps able to parasitise moth eggs. One wasp can lay its eggs in more than 50 moth eggs in its short life of up to two weeks.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21043896