Sharjah24 – Reuters: Researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz studied T. nylanderi ants that were infected with A. brevis tapeworms and found that the infected ants lived longer.
They found that's because the tapeworms release chemicals that keep their victims young. Even at an advanced age, the infected ants still retained their youthful bodies.
Young ants start off a yellow color, usually turning brown as they age and their skin hardens — but infected ants stayed yellow.
The infected ants were also very lazy, never leaving the nest or helping with any of the usual tasks.
The tapeworm chemicals also seemed to change the behavior of the ants around them, as these uninfected ants would serve them as if they were queens.
Researchers think the tapeworms release the magical chemical in their hosts because it makes them too slow to move away when birds break open the ant nest to hunt ants.
In this way, the tapeworms get swallowed with their hosts, which leads to the worms' eggs getting spread over large areas when the birds defecate.
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