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September 9, 2011

Mind-Controlling Virus Liquefies Caterpillars

Ferris Jabr, NewScientist


USDA/Wiki Commons

It takes just one gene to rule them all. With that gene, a voodoo virus compels its caterpillar hosts to emerge from their shady hideaways, climb en masse to the tops of trees, deliquesce and fall as a rosy rain of viral particles on their fellow healthy caterpillars. Soon, they too will make the climb of doom.

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TAGGED: Caterpillar, behavior, viral infection, virus

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