So.. Chad parasites.
I'm off to find a parasite, wish me luck.
Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
51–60 of 189 posts
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#52Can we please do the same study with politicians?
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#53> Cassidy found that infected wolves were 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders I thought we now believe that wolf packs are purely family units - mother, father and their cubs. There's no alpha wolves leading a pack of other male and female wolves, just stray wolves and family units. So a wolf pack is only comprised…
Sure, but there has to be stray wolves forming new packs. Every pack in existence started that way. While there is no fight for who will be "The Alpha", obviously there is a patriarch and matriarch of the pack.
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#54> Cassidy found that infected wolves were 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders I thought we now believe that wolf packs are purely family units - mother, father and their cubs. There's no alpha wolves leading a pack of other male and female wolves, just stray wolves and family units. So a wolf pack is only comprised…
I don't k ow anything about wolves or parasites, but those two things don't contradict each other. Maybe wolves with the parasite are exactly more likely to form such a family unit
Perhaps its just bad wording and they mean "they are 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family (BUT don't necessarily start a new pack), and 46 times more likely to (create a pack and) become pack leaders.
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#55Can't wait till pickup artist types are infecting themselves on purpose so they can be more alpha.
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#56Imagine how dystopian that would sound in humans, like some science fiction horror. "All the leaders are secretly infected by parasites". Sounds like interesting sci fi movie premise.
Culture can be seen as a symbiont for humans. Without infection, we are mere hunter-gatherers.
culture is the greatest egregore and the enemy of progress if not aligned properly
edit: and as the one below me already alluded to, your statement exists on a physical substrate whilst culture exists abstractly thus invalid
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#57Imagine how dystopian that would sound in humans, like some science fiction horror. "All the leaders are secretly infected by parasites". Sounds like interesting sci fi movie premise.
Futurama made an episode kinda like this. But it's not so dystopic: if anything it kinda made me want to eat an egg salad sandwich from a vendomat in the bathroom of a truck stop!
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#58I don't see anything in that article that makes the conclusion inevitable. It's a remarkable correlation for sure, but unfortunately it doesn't go beyond that. There's no pathway from infection to leadership (just a vague hypothesis that doesn't resemble the mechanism in rats and hyenas), and it doesn't look as if they looked at uninfected pack leaders. Perhaps pack leaders or strays eat more dead cat, or some other…
I haven't read the paper either, but I must say the operation of parasites as elements in complex biological super-systems is absolutely fascinating. Ants that march to the top of trees under the influence of fungus spores trying to be eaten by birds. Fish that commit suicide by swimming toward predators as part of a parasitic lifecycle.... evolution is truly miraculous. Another apocryphal story is cats carrying Toxo…
Things also get interesting if you look at economic and social systems in this context.
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#59Imagine how dystopian that would sound in humans, like some science fiction horror. "All the leaders are secretly infected by parasites". Sounds like interesting sci fi movie premise.
>Sounds like interesting sci fi movie premise.
Well, their field of work is called poly-ticks...
Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
#60Can't wait till pickup artist types are infecting themselves on purpose so they can be more alpha.
[deleted]