[Intro] Nature has a way of Really touching you inside It's a lesson everyone must learn It ain't no use to try to run away or Try to hide Everyone must finally Take a turn You may be a person Who believes it is your right To be free and independent to the core Well once you learn the ways of these exotic parasites, You'll see that Independence is a bore...
[Verse 1] 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 And not detect the prowling feline's smell In fact it makes the mouse become attracted to the cat He doesn't show a single sign of fright For toxoplasma seems to know precisely where it's at It is a very cunning parasite The cat then turns the mouse into a ghost And Toxoplasma joins its natural host... (The cat)
[Chorus] Now you are a living as a parasite Ain't it easy living as a parasite? You can make a living off another's life When you a living as a parasite!
[Verse 2] The lancet liver fluke lives in the liver of a cow And lays its eggs inside the cow's manure There it starts an odyssey, which somehow will allow This tiny worm to work its way back to her The fluke-infested feces is then eaten by a snail Who turns the larval worm into a cyst Excreted by the mollusk in a slimy yellow trail But the snail is only first on this fluke's list The adolescent flukeworm is then eaten by an ant And it lives awhile as an independent worm But then it does a special thing that other insects can't It infiltrates a group of the ant's nerves The ant then spends its daily life as normal as before Working in the colony all day But every night the parasite residing at it's core Manipulates him in the strangest 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 has Passed When back into the colony he'll slip And this will happen every single night Until a chewing cow will come to bite... [Chorus] Now you are a living as a parasite Ain't it easy living as a parasite? You can make a living off another's life When you a living as a parasite!
[Verse 3] The Ampulex Compressa or the "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 it's brain For if the wasp's to have a nesting place to lay her eggs The roach mustn't respond to any pain The venom doesn't kill the roach but incapacitates The nerves that tell his body to retreat Since the wasp has killed the roach's instinct to escape She takes a roach antenna as a leash She leads it to her Burrow and she climbs upon the roach And lays an egg upon it's abdomen The larva chews its way into its docile captive host And feasts upon the organs there within The roach will stay 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? [Chorus] Now you are a living as a parasite Ain't it easy living as a parasite? You can make a living off another's life When you a living as a parasite!
--------------------------------------------------------- The tech cloud proletariat reminded me of a DK song -------------------------------------------------------
