Parasites in Vienna

You may be a person who believes it is your right
To be free and independent to the core
But when you learn the ways of symbiotic parasites
You’ll see that independence is a bore

Toxoplasma gondii is a microscopic bug
Who carries all its genius in its genes
It may be on your fingers or the fibers of your rug
But to this bug there’s more than it may seem

When toxoplasma gets inside the system of a mouse
It doesn’t make him feel that he’s unwell
It gives the mouse the energy to run around the house
But not detect the prowling feline’s smell

In fact it makes the mouse become attracted to the cat
It doesn’t show the slightest sign of fright
For toxoplasma seems to know presicely where it’s at
It is a truly cunning parasite

The cat then turns the mouse into a ghost
And toxoplasma joins its natural host

CHORUS:
Now you are living as a parasite
Ain’t it easy living as a parasite
You can make a living on another’s life
When you are living as a parasite

2.
The lancet liver fluke lives in the liver of a cow
And lays its eggs inside the cow’s manure
And there it starts an odyssey which somehow will allow
This tiny worm to work his way back to her

The fluke infested feces will be eaten by a snail
Who turns the chewing larva to a cyst
Excreted by the mollusk in a slimy yellow trail
But the snail is only first on this fluke’s list

The adolescent liver fluke is eaten by an ant
And lives awhile an independent worm
But then it does peculiar things that other insects can’t
It infiltrates a group of the ant’s nerves

The ant then spends his daily life as normal as before
Working in the colony all day
But every night the parasite residing at his core
Manipulates him in the stangest ways

By the moon the ant will climb the tallest blade of grass
And sink his mandibles into the tip
And there he will be paralyzed until the night is passed
Then back into the colony he’ll slip

And this will happen every single night
Until a grazing cow will come to bite

Now you are living as a parasite
Ain’t it easy living when you’re out of site
Feeding off of others when they take a bite
Now you are living as a parasite

The ampulex compressa or emerald cockroach wasp
Is famous for her reproductive ways
For when she has a common household cockroach in her grasp
She sinks her stinger twice into her prey

The first attack will paralyze the roach’s frontal legs
The second one goes straight into its brain
For the wasp to have a nesting place to lay her egg
The roach mustn’t respond to any pain

The venom doesn’t kill the roach but incapacitates
The nerves which tell its body to retreat
And since the wasp has killed the roach’s instinct to escape
She takes the roach antenna as a leash

She leads it to her burrow and she climbs upon the roach
And lays an egg upon its abdomen
The larva chews its way into its docile captive host
And feasts upon the organs there within

The roach will stays alive another week until the worm
Can spin its own cocoon and climb inside
And in about a month the larval worm has finally turned
Into a wasp who leaves its host and flies

And so the natural cycle is complete
So who says reproduction isn’t sweet?