A parasitic hairworm that infects crickets and causes them to 'commit suicide' by drowning (pictured above) somehow prompts its host to develop a death wish at exactly the right time. That is, when the hairworm (Paragordius tricuspidatus) is sexually mature and its host's timely demise in a watery grave enables it to reproduce.
Marta Sanchez at the Centre for Evolutionary and Functional Ecology in Montpellier, France, and her colleagues have broken down the crickets' change of behaviour into two stages. They compared infected and uninfected crickets (Nemobius sylvestris) collected from both their native dry forest habitat and from bizarre locations such as car parks. Uninfected crickets do not stray from their natural environment; however, not all of those found in foregin territories were suicidal at the time of collection.
It seems that, as the hairworm matures, it initiates erratic behaviour in crickets, causing errant wanderings. It then triggers suicide when it is reproductively ready.
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Parasitology: Hopping mad. Nature 455, 839 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/455839d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/455839d
