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Chapter 12

THE MASTER PARASITE

Meet wolbachia, the parasite that wants to rule the world

Wolbachia is tiny, sle cell, but its powers are enorenetically, tamper with their unborn children, and create whole new species of carrierswhatever it takes to fill the world olbachia

No one kno many creatures on earth are infected At least twenty thousand insect species carry it, and so do a lot of worms and lice That&039;s trillions of carriers as far as we know And every new place scientists look, they find more

So, do you have to worry about wolbachia? We&039;ll get back to that later

Here&039;s the strangest thing about wolbachia: No living creature has ever been infected with it That&039;s right, you don&039;t catch wolbachia; you are born with it

Huh?

You see, wolbachia is like one of those scrawny supervillains with a big brain Wolbachia is a wimp: It can never leave its host&039;s body, not even in a drop of blood At soave up the whole juy of staying in safe territory - it spends its whole life inside one host

So how does it spread? Very cunningly Rather than risk the outside world, wolbachia infects new carriers before they&039;re born That&039;s right: Every infected creature gets the disease from its own mother

But what happens olbachia is born into a male host? Males can&039;t have children, so they&039;re a dead end for the infection, right?

This is the evil genius part

In many insect species, wolbachia scraenes with a secret code Only other wolbachia (living inside a feht So when an infected insect tries to mate with a healthy one, the kids are born with horrible enerations of breeding only with one another, the infected insects slowly evolve into a new species This species is one hundred percent infected olbachia and dependent on its own parasite to have children (Insert evil laugh here)

And this isn&039;t wolbachia&039;s only species-altering trick

In some kinds of wasps, wolbachia has an even more power-crazed solution to the es all its host&039;s unborn children into feives these fe And of course, all of those kids are born female too In other words, males become completely irrelevant Because of wolbachia, some species of wasp have become entirely female All the boys are dead

In fact, some scientists believe that wolbachia&039;s trickschunk of the insect and worm species on our planet Soo on to infect other creatures (That&039;s right, even parasites have parasites Isn&039;t nature wonderful?) In this olbachia is slowly re the safety of home

So what about you? You&039;re not an insect or a worm Why worry about wolbachia?

Meet the filarial wor flies It happens to be one of wolbachia&039;s big success stories All of these worms are infected If you "cure" a filarial ith antibiotics, it can&039;t have kids anymore It&039;s dependent on its own parasites - one of ineered to be wolbachia carriers

So what happens when a fly infected with filarial wors there The eggs hatch, and the babies swi up in your eyeballs Fortunately, the baby worms don&039;t hurt your eyes Unfortunately, the wolbachia they carry sets off a red alert in your immune systeo blind

Why does wolbachia do this? What is its evolutionary strategy in blinding hu is for sure, though: Wolbachia wants to rule the world