The Parasite That Turns Ants Into Zombie Snacks 🐜

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Lancet liver fluke is a terrestrial trematode that uses terrestrial snails as its first host of larval parasites.

[00:00:08]Inside of those snails, they reproduce asexually. They basically clone themselves.

[00:00:14]Those asexual stages are emitted from the snail in the mucus. Those slime balls are a delicacy for ants.

[00:00:22]The next larval stage of the parasite forms cysts inside of the ants' heads.

[00:00:29]These ants that are infected tends to climb up onto vegetation because this parasite is trying to get its ant into the gut of the final host of the parasite, which are grazing animals.

[00:00:41]Once that ant is eaten by a sheep or a cow, that worm can now migrate into the liver where it finds another worm, sexually reproduces, then those eggs are pooped out by that sheep or cow. A snail eats that poop, gets infected with the parasite, and the life cycle is complete.