After several ocean otters wash up short along California ’s shore , scientists dug into the mystery and uncovered an unlikely pair of culprit : a strange nervous strain of a mind - control parasite and feline turd .

The four ocean otter were notice stranded between February 2020 and March 2022 . It ’s known that this coinage can be particularly vulnerable to infection ofToxoplasma gondii , a single - celled parasite found throughout the world that usually infect domestic cats . It also infects humans and is suspect to change their demeanour ( more on that later on ) .

oddly , this unlucky crew of ocean otter was suffering from stark inflammation of their consistency fat , an unexpected symptom for sea otters withtoxoplasmosis . Their bodies were also interpenetrate with the parasite , yet their brain was left relatively untouched , which is strange since the parasite typically infect the nervous organization .

“ I have studiedToxoplasmainfections in sea otter for 25 years , and I have never seen such life-threatening lesions or gamey parasite number , ” Melissa Miller of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in astatement .

investigate the four shell , scientists at UC Davis found the sea otter were infected with a rare strain of the parasiteT. gondiithat ’s never been reported in aquatic animals before . Scientists call it COUG , as it was first find in Canadian mountain Lion during surveillance after a nearby eruption among humans in the mid-1990s . It ’s since been identified in many other animals , and is particularly virulent in mice .

“ This was a complete surprise . The COUG genetic constitution has never before been draw in ocean otters , nor anywhere in the California coastal environment or in any other aquatic mammal or bird , ” added aged writer Karen Shapiro of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine .

The bearing of the strange COUG strain raise a distressing question : how was the sponger seduce its way from the deal into the bellies of coastal puppet ?

The researcher print a study that report the deaths all occurred during periods of high rain and increased water overspill . Perhaps , they think over , infectedferal cat-o'-nine-tails have poopedon land and the parasite trickle down to the coastline , where it resided in snails and shellfish that are eaten by the ocean otters .

The scientists also observe that this antecedently unknown nerve pathway could impact other animal that are susceptible toToxoplasmainfection – let in us . After all , we also wish to eat oyster , clams , and mussel , just like ocean otters .

In the US , an estimated 11 pct of the human population has been infect withT. gondii , according to theCDC . In various other parts of the world , the infection rate might be upwards of 60 percentage .

Infection in humans does n’t by and large develop strong-arm symptom unless the innkeeper is immunocompromised , in which case it can be deadly . However , it has been linked to a number of freaky behavioural change in multitude .

enquiry paint a picture some infected men with toxoplasmosis aremore impulsiveand that infected people are significantly more likely to be involve in afatal motorcar crashthan those free of the leech . It ’s also been link up toschizophrenia , although some of theevidence is sketchy .

The ocean otter subject field did n’t search whether the raw parasitical pals of sea otters might be make them more adventurous or hotheaded , but it does appear that these infections could sit a risk to sea otters , which are already endangered .

The subject was published in March 2023 in the journalFrontiers in Marine Science .