{"id":351304,"date":"2026-03-21T20:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T20:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/351304\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T20:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T20:37:08","slug":"it-not-only-eats-its-victim-from-the-inside-out-it-also-uses-a-biological-weapon-to-paralyse-it-and-turn-it-into-a-zombie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/351304\/","title":{"rendered":"It not only eats its victim from the inside out, it also uses a biological weapon to paralyse it and turn it into a zombie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A spectacular case of a parasite manipulating its host involves a tiny wasp named Dinocampus coccinellae, which lays its eggs in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/insects-invertebrates\/facts-about-ladybirds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> ladybirds<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>After eating the ladybird from within, the larva emerges to pupate, and somehow compels its host to stand over it protectively until the adult hatches a week later.<\/p>\n<p>Biologists have now found that the parasite relies on highly specialised assistance.<\/p>\n<p>The wasp harbours a virus, which, once transferred to the ladybird with the egg, accumulates in the victim\u2019s brain and paralyses it.<\/p>\n<p>Nolwenn Dheilly, one of the scientists involved, said \u201cWe strongly believe that such three-way systems are extremely common, and that many parasites use microbes as biological weapons to modify the host to their advantage,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A spectacular case of a parasite manipulating its host involves a tiny wasp named Dinocampus coccinellae, which lays&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-351304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}