Rat hunting, 1850.
One of the many diseases harboured by rats is toxoplasmosis.
Toxoplasmosis is a major livestock disease and is a serious problem for humans. In the U.S., it is said that toxoplasmosis causes more congenital abnormalities than rubella, syphilis and herpes combined.
The Toxoplasma gondii parasite (a protozoan) passes from rats to cats to humans. It has long been known that toxoplasmosis changes rat behavior and makes them more susceptible to predation by domestic cats, which are the parasite's definitive host.
Dr. David Macdonald's team from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford looked into how toxoplasmosis effects rat behaviour. They found that compared with healthy rats, infected rats were more active (and hence more prone to cat predation), more curious (even approaching humans), and more likely to overcome their innate fear of cat odour. Some infected rats even preferred areas scented with predator odors!
Obviously, a disease that makes rats lose fear of predators must have some adaptive benefit for the microrganism. And it does. Since infected rats are more likely to be killed by cats, the Toxoplasma cunningly helps move itself on to its final cat host.
Ironically, curiosity kills the rat, not the cat.
In most other respects, rats infected by Toxoplasma behave normally. They are not totally deranged and their social status within their warrens is unchanged. However, infected rats are less phobic of novel foods and are also more easily trapped. So, in addition to tempting fate with respect to predation, these unfortunate rats are also more susceptible to control measures.
Toxoplasmosis is very rarely carried by dogs. It is theoretically possible for a dog to get toxoplasmosis, but this is so rare (only occuring in dogs with seriously compromised immune systems that are already fighting off some other type of disease) that dogs are not considered a vector.
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3 comments:
Years back, I lost a seemingly healthy week old puppy. The initial autopsy results claimed that his cause of death was toxoplasmosis.
This caused us an unbelievable amount of time, money and grief. Every human in my household had to have a blood test for toxo - all of which, btw, turned out negative.
A second autopsy at the National Agriculture Laboratories in Alberta showed a completely different result - Neospora Caninum
In fact, it was one of the very few cases to every conclusively show dogs as the proven host of Neospora Caninum.
The full story, if you want to read it -
http://bullmarketfrogs.com/articles/rawfoodrisk.htm
Carol
Toxoplasmosis affect humans they same way it does rats - it makes cats more appealing. So, the toxoplasma really want to make their way towards cats. It lingers in the human brain, dormant, and makes humans more drawn to cat odors and behaviors. Interestingly, it makes cat urine less appalling to men and more offensive to women. So cats have a brain-control mechanism, essentially, for getting you to clean their litterbox. The zombies will come bearing pooper-scoopers.
Carol-
veterinarian here-
Neospora caninum is a very close relative of Toxoplasma gondii, (and may be hard to distinguish by microscopy alone) which may be why the autopsy first reported Toxo instead of Neospora. Toxo is far more common than Neospora.
medically and physically, they both also do very similar things to humans and animals, by the way...
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