Help finding info

A couple of years back I saw in a nature show ( in the discovery or the learning channel) an interesting story about a three stage symbiotic relationship. The jist of it was: There is a parasite that inhabits the gut of a bird as a means of transport. It is deposited on leafs via the bird droppings and when these leafs are ingested by a particular type of slug, it infects the slug and affects it in such a way that it makes it radiate bands of color around the slug’s antennae. The color around the antennae cause the slug to be noticed by the type of bird which is the transport for the parasite. As the bird eats the slug the parasite completes the cycle and starts again.

Now I have seen this show but try as I may I have been unable to find any references to it in the web. I have googled and dogpiled all types of variations trying to find either the show, or any other reference to this unusual three way relationship. Has anyone else out there ever hear of this before?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Luis

i rememberred seeing something similar to this on the most extreme show on animal planet execpt that it was about a parasite that control the ant and make it hangs from the tip of a grass blade so rabbits would eat it. after the rabbit poops (whic have the parasite eggs in it) it is eaten by slug which just love rabbit pellet and as it turns out the parasite egg, once hatched inside the slug, clog up the breathing thingy in slug with mucus to the point of the slug coughting it out. seems like the slug mucus ball (with the parasite in it) is also a favorite of the ants and the cycle resumes.

Maybe you could find info on this if you go to the most extreme site and try to find it. I’ll look it up and if i find info on that episode, i’ll post a link here.

:EDIT: I’m not sure but i think it was in the episode “Horror” #9 of the first season.

:EDIT#2:I found a forum discussion talking about snail parasites and stuffs and there is a mention of the parasites and stuffs that u r talking about. Click here to see the discussion. There is also several links posted in the discussio which i’ve not seen yet but you might want to check it out.

Thanks, Rad. This does indeed look like what I was looking for. I’ll checkout “The trials of life”.

Luis

you are welcome, I love it when I see people trying to find out weird or interesting info cause I do the same (and somewhat still do) all the time when I was growing up and wasted a whole bunch of money on books and stuffs each 2 weeks or so trying something else and stuffs like bird-watching, quantum physics, geology, astrology and stuffs.

The knowledge i’ve gained through this have helped me out a whole lot in school to the point of being a hassle to the teacher cause i had a tendencies to correct my teachers all the time in classes and it tends to be pretty funny to see the teacher trying to not look dumb or at least that they didn’t know it and stuffs.

:EDIT: I’m thinking about starting up another thread game which the poster respond to the last post with somewhat related “interesting” info like this

http://www.strangefacts.com/a.gifThe Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off
info from http://www.strangefacts.com/

What do you think?

Cool, I even found a small animation of an infected slug.

http://www.vu-wien.ac.at/i116/i116more_links/Leucochloridium/leuco.htm

Edit1:
Article here:
http://www.weichtiere.at/Mollusks/Schnecken/parasitismus/leucochloridium.html
Other neat animation from above web page here:
http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/biologie/Didaktik/Zoologie/html_deutsch/pics/Leucochloridium01.mov

Luis