{"id":126,"date":"2006-02-02T15:18:41","date_gmt":"2006-02-02T19:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=126"},"modified":"2006-02-02T15:18:41","modified_gmt":"2006-02-02T19:18:41","slug":"god-hates-cockroaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"God hates cockroaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

and the proof, via Carl Zimmer<\/a> is in some research<\/a> in the Journal of Neurobiology.<\/em> They want $25 to read it, so I am relying on Zimmer’s summary here. There is a species of wasp, Ampulex compressa,<\/em> which lays its eggs in cockroaches. So far, nothing unusual. There are several species of wasp which paralyse their prey before planting eggs in them. But this wasp merely zombifies its victim cockroach: in the language of the paper The wasp Ampulex compressa injects a cocktail of neurotoxins into the brain of its cockroach prey to induce an enduring change in the execution of locomotory behaviors.<\/span> It stings it precisely in the head in such a way as to abolish its fear reflex. Somehow the sting contains a venom which renders the cockroach completely docile, if rather sluggish.<\/p>\n\n

The stung and zombified cockroach can then walk on its own legs, tugged by the wasp that pulls at its antenna, into the wasp’s burrow, where it is immured for the little baby waspling to burrow into and devour alive in the normal way.<\/p>\n\n

The scientists involved have been looking at cockroach neurons to find out how the neurotoxins work, but when I think about the story,. what I find most remarkable is the wasp’s behaviour. How are those instructions stored in its tiny brain?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

and the proof, via Carl Zimmer is in some research in the Journal of Neurobiology. They want $25 to read it, so I am relying on Zimmer’s summary here. There is a species of wasp, Ampulex compressa, which lays its … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}