Parasitism - Tumblr Posts
How Mitochondria used to be Parasites that Created Gender
How Mitochondria used to be Parasites that Created Gender
How Mitochondria used to be Parasites that Created Gender Forward: I’ve been too busy this past week to write an article but didn’t want to be on hiatus for so long. I found this article which I wrote four or five months ago but didn’t post because the humor turned out a lot darker than what I would normally do. I dunno, mitochondria are just really based and spicy, I guess. Keep that in…
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How Dog Cancer Became a New Species (CTVT)
You probably think of cancer as being not infectious, right? One of your cells made a pro gamer move and started dividing uncontrollably, but it’s not like that could become someone else’s problem. I mean, I can’t even get a kidney transplant, gaining superhuman urine production with the power of three kidneys, without needing drugs to stop my body from rejecting it.
But it turns out there actually are some types of cancer that are not only infectious, but become plagues in their own right! Lets talk about that.
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Oh, that's an idea!
*Googles*
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE ALREADY PARASITIC CRUSTACEANS?
Well, what about parasitic sea slugs?
*Googles*
CURSE THEE GOD! CURSE THEE!
This is basically just a funky creature design concept.
I'm planning to act on the idea in the future.
Please click it for ♡better quality♡ it's easier to catch the details that way.
Details below the cut, if you're intrigued.
The tongue of the dragon shown in the sketch is quite literally a parasite, which overtook the body of an already dead dragon to be its host.
The parasite resembles a mass of slick black material, which fills up its host to control it more efficiently. But the start of control begins when it grows around and into the brain of its host. It almost always targets creatures that are already dead, preferably recently.
It uses the host to hunt for prey, which it then consumes. If hunting is not an option and starvation is imminent, it'll decompose its host for energy over time.
In later stages, the parasite isn't very apparent in its host, when it has overtaken the body competely. The movements of its host are often erratic and jerky in earlier stages due to incomplete/underdeveloped manipulation of its host's body.
The parasite can't produce any noises from its mouth.
These animals are common for it to select as a host:
• apex predators
• animals in the canidae genus (ex. wolves, foxes, dogs)
• animals in the felidae genus (ex. panthers, lions, house cats)
• dragons (given that this isn't exactly a "realistic" world I'm working with, and the animals listed above have evolved to coexist with other species like dragons without dying in two seconds flat)
I might update this later. Feel free to use this in an A.U. or idea, as long as you give credit.
Okay am I stupid or are there actually no papers on this?
I'm writing an essay for a neuroendocrinology course and decided my topic to be olfactory detection of predators.
Basically my thinking was "what if prey animals... Just... Smell their enemies coming??? Wouldn't that be extremely advantageous???" And it turns out that there's been a number of studies on rats and mice that prove: Yes, they can smell predators and those odours actually induce a quick fear response in the rats/mice!
Weird? No, not really. Detecting predators from afar is very useful. It's why prey animals often have eyes on both sides of their head: to scan the horizon for predators in almost all directions.
Point is that predator and prey are locked in a co-evolutionary arms race: if prey adapts to predator, predator in turn has to adapt as well. Your prey can detect you from a yards away? Just slap on some camouflage. Your preys ears are like satellite dishes? Just develop specialised feathers that make glide silently through the air. Or, what some predators decided to do, ignore all the beautiful innovations from your prey and just... team up with yo frens and circle your meal...
But if your prey has a keen sense of smell??? What can you do? You could mask your scent some way or another (olfactory camouflage) or leave fewer scent marks on your territory... I guess...
But I've never heard of such a strategy. Nor can I find papers on the matter...
Rats and mice rely on their sense of smell almost more than anything... And they can smell odours from foxes clearly. So then why do foxes still secrete those odours??
TLDR; rat smell fox, fox do not use deodorant, why??
EDIT: ppl keep reblogging this but it's worth it to look in the notes because people have been providing answers to this