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While we tend to think of the concept of a cat-and-mouse chase to be a one-way affair, this isn’t always the case with the animals that originated the phrase: a parasite, called Toxoplasma gondii, can create a suicidal aggressiveness in mice, specifically directed toward cats, in order to get the targeted feline to eat the infected rodent. Needless to say, there’s a point to such self-destructive behavior, as the Toxoplasma parasite can only reproduce inside the intestines of a cat.
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There are parasites that infect certain insects and turn them into self-destructive zombies (and it turns out this can happen to people too–do you own a cat?)

When a shrimp-like creature called a gammarid gets infected by a certain type of worm, it becomes a zombie and swims towards the water’s surface, where they can easily be picked off by birds, which the worms need to complete their life cycle.
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About 15 years ago, evolutionary biologist Jaroslav Flegr began to notice dramatic changes in himself and upon investigation, theorized that a tiny parasite that he caught from his cat was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was doing this to him, it was doing the same thing to other cat owners (but only if your cat is a "mouser").
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