100 words 081
Dicrocoelium dendriticum is a parasite that infects cattle by manipulating ants.
Once the parasite has been ingested by an ant, it compels the ant to climb to the top of a blade of grass every evening until together, they are ingested by a passing ruminant.
I wonder if the ant thinks that it decided to climb that blade of grass.
Humans are hosts to many microbes. A typical human carries ten times more bacterial DNA than human DNA: about 100 trillion bacteria.
We think that we decide to explore. But perhaps a human being is just a microbe’s space programme.
