http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/brain-parasite-may-strip-away-rodents-fear-predators-not-just-cats

Toxoplasma gondii exerts a strange sort of mind control on rodents: Once infected with the brain parasite, they seem to lose their fear of cats and become more likely to get eaten. When they are, the microbe can make its way into the feline intestine to reproduce. But a new study argues that T. gondii’s effects on rodents aren’t cat specific; instead, the parasite simply makes mice more eager to explore and less fearful of any species that might gobble them up.

“It doesn’t make the parasite look to be this genius that many people thought it was,” says William Sullivan, a microbiologist at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, who was not involved in the new work.