this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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Honestly the idea that parasites all share a single, simple method of reproduction is the silliest thing in this comic. There's a cordyceps fungus that not only has a stage in an ant, it then swells and reddens the abdomen of the ant, takes over the behavior of the ant and forces it to climb to the top of a stalk of grass, and has it wave in the air until a bird mistakes it for a berry and swoops down and eats it. At this point it has a whole other phase of its life cycle inside the bird until it finally releases its spores in the bird's droppings.
(I probably have a few of the details here not quite right, as it's not my field of expertise, but it's along these lines, including the behavior modification and the two separate host species.)
There are so many kinds of parasites, and they do so many crazy things.