http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110718085229.htm
The parasitic wasp Dinocampus coccinellae is no fool. It controls a ladybug, lays an egg in its abdomen and turns it into the bodyguard of its cocoon. This surprising host-parasite manipulation has been observed and analyzed by researchers from the Laboratoire Maladies Infectieuses et Vecteurs: Ecologie, Génétique, Evolution et Contrôle (CNRS/IRD/Université Montpellier 1) and the Université de Montréal.
Females deposit a single egg in the abdomen of their host, the ladybug, and during larval development (around twenty days) the parasite feeds on the host's tissues. Then, the wasp larva breaks out through the ladybug's abdomen, without killing it, and begins spinning a cocoon between the ladybug's legs. The ladybug, partially paralyzed, is forced to stand guard over the cocoon.
Interesting how other creatures can manipulate each other.
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