Occasionally a cricket will become suicidal and jump into a body of water and drown itself. This weird behavior has an even weirder cause. There is a parasite, Gordian (or Horsehair) worm, that lives in crickets. This parasite grows inside the cricket until it is of a mature size.
However, the worm has to be in water to reproduce so it has found an interesting way to do that. The worm releases proteins into the cricket's brain which causes the cricket to behave erratically. And as soon as that cricket comes near a large body of water, they jump right in and drown. At which time the worm crawls out of the dead cricket carcass to go and reproduce.
The Gordian Worm uses mind control to force the cricket to kill itself, which is a pretty cool concept if you really think about it.
Now I'm just trying to think how I can use that information in my next book. :)
