The brain-hijacking parasite that creates disco zombie snails
Green-banded broodsac: The brain-hijacking parasite that creates disco zombie snails
This parasitic worm crawls into the eyestalks of snails, takes over its brain then pulsates to make the mollusk look like a dancing caterpillar.
An amber snail infected with the green-banded broodsac (Leucochloridium paradoxum) parasite. (Image credit: drsergGetty Images)
Why it's awesome: This parasitic flatworm is best known for creating disco zombies: It takes over the bodies of amber snails (Succinea) by clambering into their eyestalks and forcing them to dance to attract birds' attention.
A snail first comes into contact with L. paradoxum via bird droppings, which contain the eggs of the green-banded broodsac. Upon hatching, the larvae move to the tentacles of the snail and create a sac. As this matures, it grows and replaces the eyestalk of the snail, effectively blinding it and preventing it from drawing the tentacle back into its body.
It also becomes colorful and pulsates at a rate of 60 to 80 contractions per minute, creating a disco-like vibe.
The broodsac also takes over the snail's brain. As a neuroparasite, it infects the nervous system of its mollusk host and controls its behavior. The snail is then forced to go to well-lit and more-exposed areas, such as the surface of a leaf, where it looks tantalizingly like a caterpillar to unsuspecting birds.
Once ingested, the parasite matures into an adult, mates with other adults and produces eggs that are released into the bird's droppings, kicking off the cycle again.
If the snail is lucky, only its tentacle is taken by the bird. In that case, the snail remains blind until the tentacle regrows — meaning it can be reinfected and again act as a host for the parasite.
https://www.livescience.com/animals/snails/green-banded-broodsac-the-brain-hijacking-parasite-that-creates-disco-zombie-snails
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What to think about that. Kind of repulsive but strangely interesting. 
Hollywood could adapt this into the next gross-out flic: down-on-his luck prosthetic salesman meets beautiful young opthamologist. Date a few times, dinner, disco dancing mostly to music by the Bee-Gees. Strange things start happening in each other's professional lives usually connected by left out beer and spilled salt but always including a big bird of some sort - Ostrich, Turkey Vulture, Red-tail, etc. Ooooh, maybe the opthamologist is also a raptor biologist and the salesman raises racing pigeons. That's how they met. Anyway, they put two and two together. The army shows up and Bingo, a B-movie.
Nawww, it'd never work.
And yuckk! 
They're repulsive....
Especially the big orange slug down in Mar-a-Lardo.
lays eggs, which exits in the bird's poop. All done inside a living bird. Is there any harm to the bird? Has there been any studies?
I wish I was smarter to understand things like this.
Jewish Disco Gazpacho Brain Rot...
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