A mosquito count scheduled for later this month will decide the schedule for any spraying required to control the pest.

Although a tentative schedule has been scheduled for possible mosquito spraying throughout the community, it will not go into effect unless the count done by the county’s mosquito control department warrants it, said Kristi Connell, the association’s public relations director.

Cy Lesser, chief of the Maryland Department of Agriculture’s Mosquito Control, said mosquito counts are a request-only service, with approximately 140 communities in the county having mosquito surveillance performed.

Lesser said the first stage of mosquito counts in the Pines began in early April.

“What happens is, a team goes in and looks for mosquito larvae in various locations like stormwater, undeveloped lots and undrained ditches. Then they will treat those areas with the larvae,” he said.

Lesser said that because Worcester County has had a cool and dry spring, counts for adult mosquitoes will be conducted at the end of May.

There are two methods for conducting adult mosquito counts and the primary way is through light traps, Lesser said. He said there are approximately five traps placed in various sections of the Pines that operate overnight. The next morning inspectors come in, get the light traps, identify and count the mosquitoes.

“In order for a treatment to be done, the mosquito count has to reach a certain level. If it’s below the level, no treatment will be done,” Lesser said. “On average, if 10 mosquitoes get caught each night in the trap and are counted, then treatment could be performed.”

He added that not all mosquitoes are attracted to light, therefore, a second method is used where the inspectors respond to private complaints at particular properties in the community.

“An inspector will go out into a person’s yard and use themselves as bait for one to two minutes,” Lesser said. “The inspectors will do a count of how many land on them in that period, and a treatment would most likely be performed in the area if at least five land within that two-minute interval.”

According to Lesser, the need for treatment and mosquito spraying varies in the Pines each year and depends on factors such as weather and in what section of the community a person lives.

“It used to be that three-quarters or more of the mosquitoes in Ocean Pines would be in sections 15 and 10, because they are the more southern sections in the community, and as we went more north there would be fewer and fewer, but that has changed,” he said.

According to Lesser, there are many factors that have caused the change, but primarily it is the introduction within the last 10 years of the tiger mosquito. He said the tiger mosquito is attracted to containers, puddles, flowerpots and anything in a person’s yard that will hold the smallest amount of water.

Unlike the Ocean Pines’ native mosquito, which is more attracted to wetlands and tends to stay away from humans, the tiger mosquito has become a large nuisance to many communities because it can closely associate with humans.

“Once it was introduced to any area, it just proliferated and is now the number-one problem species we answer complaints about,” Lesser said.

“Since Ocean Pines is a vacation getaway and retirement community, the tiger mosquito has begun to make more of an appearance during the last 10 years, because people are bringing them in with items that may have been stored somewhere the mosquito would be,” he said.

Mosquito spraying must be done carefully. Consideration must include the wind and its direction to avoid contaminating delicate environments.

The schedule, if the mosquito count reaches the required level for spraying, is as follows; on the Monday following the decision to conduct the spraying, the process would begin in sections 10, 15A, 15B, 16 and 17, that Tuesday would be sections 11, 14A, 14B, 14C, 14D, 18 and 19, on Wednesday would be sections 4, 9, 12 and 13, that Thursday would be sections 1, 2, 3 and 7 and the Friday would be sections 5, 6 and 8.

For more information, call the OPA at 410-641-7717.

Lying on a padded, sheet-covered table, Abby closes her eyes, relaxes — and begins wagging her tail.

The yellow Lab is getting a massage.

Her owner, Patricia Whalen-Shaw, kneads Abby’s muscles, then glides her hands in a smooth, stroking motion over the area she’s worked.

Pet massage classes are filling up with pet owners, groomers, competitors and others, instructors say. Books and DVDs about the techniques are getting more attention, too.

“I think owners overall are looking for different ways to connect with their dog beyond the traditional walk around the block or play with the Frisbee in the park,” said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club who has been a dog breeder for 20 years. “Massage is sort of filling that niche.”

The ministrations are part of an increase in pet pampering, including designer dog clothes and home parties selling canine products. Americans spent an estimated $38 billion on their pets last year, compared with about $28 billion in 2001, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.

Advocates say massage can help pets relax, recover more quickly from injury or surgery, improve performance in competition and be more comfortable if they have chronic conditions.

Veterinarians caution that massage done incorrectly can harm animals, and they urge pet owners to get their vets’ approval.

Narda Robinson, a veterinarian and physician who teaches at Colorado State University, said she considers massage a great addition to traditional medicine as long as it’s veterinarian-approved.

“Any time you’re using force on an animal, there’s room for an injury there,” said Robinson, who has seen dogs whose backs have been reinjured during massages.

Massage is increasingly used in agility competitions, which require dogs to run an obstacle course at high speed, said Katherine Leggett, assistant coach for an American Kennel Club team. Owners learn massage techniques themselves but also use professional massage therapists; one has traveled with the team to Europe.

“Most of the people I know in the sport do some level of stretching and massage on their own dogs, and it makes such a difference,” Leggett said.

As Whalen-Shaw demonstrates on Abby, the pup at first positions her body to protect her front legs. Eventually, the dog exhales audibly and allows Whalen-Shaw to massage that area as well.

Whalen-Shaw, who teaches massage classes at her farm 30 miles south of Columbus, has been showing students how to work on horses, dogs and cats for about 15 years. She stresses that the techniques she teaches are for relaxation — not medical purposes.

The massage techniques are the same as used on people but with a much lighter touch, she says.

They include making a spreading movement with the palm of the hand and fingers. Or she might knead with her fingers in a circular pattern or press down with a palm or fingers, as if she were pressing down on a wet sponge and then lifting her hand up.

She watches the animals closely during a massage to gauge their reactions. A pet’s resistance — a curled lip on a dog, ears flattened back on a horse, for instance — means she stops.

Pet owners make up about a third of the students at the Northwest School of Animal Massage in Fall City, Wash. The school, founded in 2001, graduates 80 to 150 students annually.

“We’ve been very fortunate to see tremendous growth each year,” said Lola Michelin, director of education.

Kristie Long, a retired accountant from Olympia, Wash., frequently uses what she learned there on her three dogs and the 10 ragdoll cats she breeds.

“It’s kind of a natural thing but to take the classes to really learn what you’re doing, it was wonderful,” she said.

Rules governing animal massage vary. In Utah, practitioners must be licensed to perform human massage first, then complete additional hours of animal training. Washington’s Legislature recently passed a bill allowing people to become certified after taking 300 hours of animal massage training. In some states, massage can be performed only by a veterinarian or under a vet’s supervision.

The International Association of Animal Massage and Bodywork, which has about 600 members, is working to set national standards and develop a certification test for massage practitioners.

“The interest in helping and being of service to animals is just huge,” said Jonathan Rudinger, who formed the group.

The founder of PetMassage in Toledo, Rudinger said that when he first started teaching dog massage about 10 years ago, only a handful of the thousands of people at dog shows were interested in talking to him about the practice.

Now, nearly a hundred students — including some from other countries — take his classes each year. Rudinger also sells about a thousand copies annually of a home-study course.

A weeklong canine foundation class at PetMassage runs $1,400, while a four-day canine beginner workshop costs $550 at Whalen-Shaw’s Integrated Touch Therapy.

Rhonda Cruze, who runs a day spa for dogs in Corinth, Texas, ordered Rudinger’s course about three years ago when looking for services to offer clients in addition to grooming and boarding.

“Once they understand the benefits, I do get a lot of requests for it, to add it on to the grooming service while they are here,” she said.

The increased acceptance of massage reflects the way people’s views of their pets have changed, Peterson said.

“Now that pets are considered a member of the family, owners want to give their dogs more and more of the same things that we humans enjoy,” she said.

“It’s not every day you get bitten by a shark,” said Marin County, Calif., resident Peller Marion yesterday at Maui Memorial Medical Center, where she was recovering from bite wounds to her right calf and foot.

Marion, 63, was attacked by a shark at 8:30 a.m. Monday while snorkeling at Keawakapu Beach in Kihei. She was about 25 yards from shore, in 10 to 14 feet of water, when the predator grabbed her from behind.

“All of a sudden I felt the strangest feeling. It felt like something had clenched on my foot,” she said.

Her swim fin popped off, and Marion said she thought a turtle had done it, before realizing it was something much larger.

“I turned around to look and saw this big gray thing and I thought, ‘Oh, —-,’ and started kicking and going in the other direction,” she said.

Marion, a consulting psychologist and author, said she didn’t get a good look at the shark, describing it simply as “a wall” that released its grip, turned and swam away. She said she managed to swim “lopsided” to shore and began screaming, “Shark, shark!”

“I got to the beach and was so grateful to have all of my body parts,” she said.

Bystanders rendered first aid before an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital, where she was expected to stay for three to five days.

Marion, a regular Maui visitor since 1993, was on the island in December 2005 when a 29-year-old former triathlete was bitten by a shark while swimming 200 to 400 yards off Keawakapu. She said she didn’t imagine anything like that happening to her: “What could be safer than snorkeling a couple yards offshore like I was?”

Marion said she wouldn’t have gone swimming Monday if she’d known about another shark incident an hour earlier at Kamaole Beach Park II, less than two miles north of Keawakapu. There, Mark Jackson reported encountering a 14-foot tiger shark while on a stand-up paddleboard about 100 yards offshore.

Jackson, 47, yesterday said he took off on his paddle at 7 a.m. from Keawakapu. “I was paddling down the coast enjoying a crystal-clear morning” when a large tiger shark pulled up parallel to his 14-foot board.

“It came within two feet of my board, and from that view it was without a doubt a tiger shark,” said Jackson, referring to the species’ distinctive markings. “You couldn’t mistake it for anything else.”

The shark swam beside him for five to 10 seconds before disappearing into the deep. Jackson, who just the day before had competed in the Starbucks Kaiwi Channel Relay from Moloka’i to O’ahu, said the animal was at least as long as his board.

His first reaction was one of awe. “What I found most impressive was its girth. I just was impressed with the look of it, then ‘This is not a good time to fall.’ I was very surprised by my reaction. I was not as frightened as I thought my reaction would be,” he said.

As a La Cañada resident walked across her backyard on Sunday she noticed something she had never seen before, a bobcat staring back at her.

“I was just going out to do some yard work,” said Athel Herman, who lives in the 500 block of Knight Way. She first noticed her neighbor’s cat and walked over to say hello to the pet. Then, she noticed a bobcat who was enjoying the cool shade under some nearby grapevines. Herman froze. She wanted to stay with the neighbor’s cat, not knowing what the bobcat might do if it was left alone. Then, another neighboring cat came over to her, also seeking affection.

Herman and the two domestic pets, as well as the wild cat, all sat there in her backyard watching each other for a while, then the bobcat just got up and walked away.

“I don’t know how the bobcat left, it may have gone through our fence or over it,” Herman said.

Herman had never seen a bobcat in the area before but was told by a friend that they have been seen on the riding trials that crisscross La Cañada. Although the encounter was calm, she worried about the children in the area.

“I am close to Paradise Canyon Elementary,” Herman said.

She wants La Cañadans to know that bobcats have been known to attack people and they are out there and walking through neighborhoods.

Sooner than later, one of your kids is going to throw you a disarming smile and utter the question you’ve been dreading since the day he was born.

“Mom, can we get a puppy? Please?”

If you’re unequivocally opposed to the idea, consider the following response: “No, Timmy, we can’t get a puppy right now. You know, only about one-third of all Americans are pet owners, so while it may seem like we’re the only family without a puppy, the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association says we’re not. In actuality, only about 40 percent of all households have dogs.

“And of course, having a canine can be very, very expensive - it costs about $620 a year to care for a medium-sized dog, not including medical emergencies.”

Enough said?

Pets are great, but use common sense

It’s OK if you balk at bringing a puppy or a pet into your home, says veterinarian and medical doctor Lana Kaiser, because it indicates you’ve got some understanding of what owning a pet entails.

“Dogs can be a wonderful creatures,” says Kaiser, a professor at the MSU College of Human Medicine. “But they can be a burden, especially for the mom in the household.”

What makes the decision complicated, Kaiser says, is there is probably a part of you that understands how important pets are to children.

“Pets offer kids unconditional love,” Kaiser says. “They don’t care if you’re dirty, if you wear glasses, or if you smell bad.”

Additionally, Kaiser says, there’s evidence that pets can improve a child’s social skills and self-esteem.

What’s needed to make it all work, she says, is a common sense approach.

“Animals don’t come perfect,” Kaiser says. “If you do decide to get a dog, you have to take the time to train it, and you must pick a breed that’s appropriate for your family.”

Sweet tweets

For some families, however, owning a dog (or cat) is out of the question. Sometimes, allergies or asthma make it impossible; the landlord won’t allow it; or a hectic family dynamic makes it unwise.

That doesn’t mean all pets have to be off limits.

“We’ve had all kids of pets, including dogs, cats, fish and hermit crabs,” says Lansing area resident Rita Hale. “But we wanted and needed something easier, so now we have parakeets.”

With four kids between the ages of 2 and 10, and a husband who is allergic to cats, low maintenance birds like parakeets are a practical pet, says Hale, 37.

“We like the idea of having pets the kids can take care of and interact with,” she says. “But with birds, you really don’t have vet bills and when you go on vacation, someone just has to check on them every two or three days.”

Hale also appreciates the fact their birds may live as long as 18 years.

“It’s so much better than watching fish die all the time,” Hale says. “We thought fish would be so easy, and after my daughter brought home a goldfish from a birthday party … we went out and spent $150 for a tank, and the fish died the next day.”

They got more fish, Hale says, but got tired of explaining about the “circle of life” each time one of them floated to the top of the aquarium.

“Birds are so much easier,” she says. “I tell everybody they should get birds.”

Get real

When it comes to pairing kids and pets, says Rick Preuss, owner of Preuss Pets in Lansing, parents need to be realistic.

“You have to think about what you want to accomplish by bringing a pet into the family,” Preuss says. “If you want to teach a child responsibility, but that fails, are you prepared to step up to the plate to care for that animal?”

Parents should also research prospective pets in advance.

“For example, for kids under 5, we don’t recommend reptiles because of the chance kids could be exposed to salmonella,” Preuss says.

If you’re considering a reptile for older kids, do so with caution, says Preuss.

“Leopard geckos and Bearded Dragons are hardy and easy to keep,” Preuss says. “But they are more for observing than handling.”

Rats are good

Small mammals such as guinea pigs are great pets for kids ages 5 to 10 because they easily adapt to and thrive on consistent, gentle interaction with their owners. Hamsters, on the other hand, are more defensive by nature and better suited to kids 10 and older.

Preuss’ top small mammal pick for kids, however, is one that most parents might hesitate to consider: a rat.

“Rats are fantastic pets,” Preuss says. “I highly recommend them.”

If you and your child still can’t agree on a pet, Preuss says to consider a cost/benefit analysis. “There are certainly tangible benefits to pet ownership, but there the intangibles, too,” Preuss says. “Maybe owning a lizard will make a child more aware of ecological diversity.”

You can’t put a dollar value on a pet owner’s love for their cat or dog.

But that’s exactly what the Streetsville, Ontario, pet food company Menu Foods faces in reimbursing local owners of animals who ate contaminated pet food linked to the deaths and illnesses of animals across the country.

Dolores and Robert Weise’s 8-year-old cat Pee Shoo was in Dunnellon Animal Hospital with renal failure for a week - at a cost of more than $1,000 in critical care - after eating Special Kitty wet food from a pouch bought at a local Wal-Mart.

Social Security is the only steady income the retired couple has, but fortunately for Pee Shoo, they had enough money saved up to cover the costs. The cat is home again with a daily IV drip being applied to make sure the feline stays hydrated.

But not every person with a sick animal has the resources to get them better.

“I know there are people who have to take their animals home to die,” said Robert Weise.

The couple shares a tale common with people whose animals have been diagnosed with kidney failure after eating recalled pet food.

Across north central Florida, thousands of dollars have been spent on the testing, critical care and aftercare of pets that have eaten the tainted pet food. Higher-costing prescription food or other medicines are ongoing costs owners like the Weise family face, with little or no guarantees about how long such measures must be taken.

Upon learning about the possible connection between Pee Shoo’s illness and the company’s food, the couple tried 20 to 30 times to reach Menu Foods.

They often got a busy signal. When they got through, their name and number was taken, and they were told someone would call back.

“Nobody would call back,” Robert Weise said. None of their calls were returned to date.

Across the country, several lawsuits have been filed against Menu Foods. The company has been criticized for not acting quickly enough after its own tests showed animal deaths and for not responding fast enough to a rising tide of customer complaints.

The Weises have thought about hiring a lawyer, but they’ve heard about Menu Foods’ recent promise to make good on all the veterinary bills associated with the recall. They’re waiting to see if that actually happens.

“There’s a little nagging doubt in my mind that Menu Foods can handle all the claims,” Robert Weise said.

Knowing about several cases at the Dunnellon Animal Hospital and hearing about more in Ocala, Robert Weise wonders just how widespread the cases must be.

Cases of kidney damage in otherwise healthy cats and dogs, which veterinarians suspect are the result of the contaminated pet food, have been seen in Ocala at Paddock Park Animal Care Center, All Pets Clinic and Airport Road Animal Clinic. At Dunnellon Animal Hospital, two cats had to be euthanized after kidney failure veterinarians believe was the result of eating bad pet food.

Veterinarians say they’re getting a steady stream of pet owners bringing in animals for testing if they’ve eaten recalled pet food. But trying to figure out exactly how many animals may have been sickened by the bad pet food across the country is like throwing a dart at a constantly moving dartboard.

“If this is typical, there will be thousands of claims made,” Robert Weise said.

A press release on Menu Foods’ Web site reports the company has heard from about 200,000 consumers regarding the recall. Not all of those are claims.

Menu Foods is advising people who believe their pet has been made ill by contaminated pet food to save receipts from pet food purchases and copies of their veterinarian bills. The company is telling consumers to keep any pet food pouches or cans with the recall-specific dates and UPC codes on them, but in a place where they can’t be mistakenly fed to pets.

Dolores and Robert have receipts from Wal-Mart showing purchases of Special Kitty cat food, and a pile of vet bills.

“I’d like to think if Menu Foods stiffs us that Wal-Mart would honor the claim,” he said. “If not, we’d take them to small claims court.”

Dolores has been angered by Menu Foods lack of response and depressed that veterinarians can’t give her assurance her cat will fully recover. She’s been stressed by the veterinary bills, knowing more medical bills are on the way with her husband going in for surgery in April.

“It’s getting hairy,” Dolores said about the family finances.

But Dolores won’t skimp on medical care for Pee Shoo, named for the sound she made to scoot the cat off furniture when it was a kitten (as in p-shoe). More than anything, Dolores wants her admittedly spoiled cat back to her old high jinks.

“My animal is my heartbeat,” she said.

Melissa Ghosh of Dogs Against Drugs and her narcotic detector canine Cassie were at Celina Junior High School on Thursday and Friday to educate students about the dangers of drugs.

Dogs Against Drugs is a non-profit corporation whose mission is to prevent substance abuse and other self-defeating behaviors by all children. Not only do Ghosh and Cassie perform narcotics searches in a number of school districts in the North Texas area including Celina Independent School District, but they regularly work to keep parents and students informed about how to handle drug problems.

“Our goal when we find a student in possession of contraband is to provide resources to help them, rather than taking a punitive approach,” said Ghosh.

Ghosh and Cassie are certified through National Narcotic Detector Dog Association. Cassie is trained in sniffing out narcotics, alcohol, and gun powder. Some topics Ghosh addresses when educating students include drugs, conflict resolution, and standing up for yourself.

Coach Roger Kincaid, who’s classes attended a seminar with Gosh and Cassie, said he noticed that Ghosh opens discussion up and lets the kids get involved. “She included the kids and they started talking like they’ve known her.”

For certain female frogs, the high-pitched calls stimulate procreation.

And for local humans lucky enough to live within ear’s reach, that “peep-peep-peep” sound rumbling inland from water’s edge has a more innocent implication: Spring is here!

Known for their chorus of metrical warbles at nightfall, “spring peeper” frogs have tuned up the vocal sacs underneath their chins to put mating season, typically March through June, in full swing.

Spring peepers, most common in the eastern United States, have crawled out from under the mud, bark and loose logs where they spent the winter and are now occupying shallow ponds, swamps and marshes across Cecil County.

The light brown, green or gray creatures with the shape of an X on their backs are about the size of a nickel, said Selena Sampson, naturalist at Fair Hill Nature Center. The frogs — scientifically called pseudacris crucifer — cling to tree bark using adhesive toe pads and eat small insects caught with their long, sticky tongues.

The nocturnal amphibians are usually not seen but heard. As the sun fades into the west on spring nights, especially during warm rains, the camouflage Casanovas tether themselves to tree barks and send their tenor-toned peeps resonating through the forests.

This is the call of male peepers looking for “love.”

“The males have a very loud shrill to attract a mate,” Sampson said. “The male with the deepest, longest peep will attract the female with the most eggs.”

A willing female that responds to a male’s call retreats with him to the water. The couple swim together for hours while the male grips her tight and covers her in a slimy solution that mixes with her eggs. About one week later, this usually results in 200 to 1,000 tadpoles, which will lose their tails by summer’s end.

Because of their tiny size — which makes them easy prey for snakes, birds and other frogs — many peepers don’t live through the first year, said Glenn Therres of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

“The important thing about peepers is that they’re very loud,” Sampson said. “A lot of people hear them and think they’re birds, but really it’s just a big group of tiny frogs.”

The spring peepers’ mating calls are said to resemble jingling bells. Though a single peep can resonate at least one-third of a mile, its pitch is much higher than a bullfrog’s, which sounds like the “thump, thump, thump” of a bass. Together, when dusk falls, all the frogs of the forest blend their calls together like a freshwater jug band to form layered rhythms, usually to the delight of humans nearby.

Anna Green, who lives on Elk Neck between the Elk River and Chesapeake Bay, said just when the weather turned warm, she started hearing peepers’ calls coming from the trees.

“I like to step out onto my porch every evening and listen for them going ‘Peep! Peep! Peep!’” she said. “For me, they’re one of the first harbingers of spring.”

She said that lately, when her husband, Robert, goes out to check the mailbox, he sees three tiny sets of frog eyes peeking out from the ditch in front of their house.

“We’re nature lovers,” Green said. “I have a sister in Virginia and every year, she’ll call and say ‘I heard my first peepers!’”

Within the last few weeks, Doris Welch of Russell Road near Grammies Run in Fair Hill has also relished the high-pitched trill of male frogs calling into the wild.

“I always think, ‘Oh boy, spring’s here,’” she said. “It’s just like when you see your first robin.”

THE world’s most endangered cat, the Iberian lynx, may be making a comeback. Five Iberian lynx were born in captivity in Andalusia in southern Spain over two days last week, reviving hopes that Spain’s increasingly successful lynx breeding program may pull the species back from extinction.

A further three captive lynx are pregnant, prompting lynx biologists to claim that this year could mark the species’ turning point.

Three Iberian lynx were first born in captivity in 2005 to Saliega, who gave birth to two more cubs last Friday.

One of Saliega’s 2005 cubs was killed in a fight with her brother, so biologists have increased monitoring of the newborn cubs to ensure that none dies unnecessarily.

“They are under surveillance 24 hours a day,” said Astrid Vargas, director of El Acebuche breeding centre in the Andalusian province of Huelva.

If such trends of a rising lynx birth rate continue, Spain’s Environment Ministry hopes to begin releasing the cats into the wild from 2010.

Populations of the Iberian lynx in Spain have fallen from 100,000 at the start of the 20th century to just 150 at the end of 2006. The animal, which once ranged across Europe, is confined in the wild to two small, fragmented communities close to Spain’s border with Portugal.

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii uses a remarkable trick to spread from rodents to cats: It alters the brains of infected rats and mice so that they become attracted to—rather than repelled by—the scent of their predators.

A new study reveals that rodents infected with the parasitic protozoa are drawn to the smell of cat urine, apparently having lost their otherwise natural aversion to the scent.

The parasite can only sexually reproduce in the feline gut, so it’s advantageous for it to get from a rodent into a cat—if necessary, by helping the latter eat the former.

In rodents, “brain circuits for many behaviors overlap with the brain circuits responsible for fear,” said Ajai Vyas of Stanford University, who led the new study.

“One would thus assume that if something messes up fear of cat pee, it will also mess up a variety of related behaviors.”

But Vyas’s experiments showed that not to be the case.

In fact, his test demonstrated just how precise and efficient the mind-bending parasite is. While manipulating rodents’ innate fear of felines, T. gondii leaves other behaviors intact.

Toxoplasma-infected mice and rats retained most typical rodent phobias, including fears of dog odors, strange-smelling foods, and open spaces. Infected rodents also didn’t appear to be sick.

Only the animals’ response to cats was abnormal: Uninfected rodents avoided an area of a room that researchers had scented with cat urine. But infected rodents actually seemed drawn to the smell.

“Toxoplasma affects fear of cat odors with almost surgical precision,” Vyas concluded. “A large number of other behaviors remain intact.”

“There are a million examples of parasites manipulating host behavior,” said Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroscientist who collaborated with Vyas.

In most cases, he said, “they do something terribly unsubtle, like destroying the vision, so [infected animals] are much less capable of avoiding predators.”

T. gondii, by contrast, “is not just sledge-hammering a behavior out of existence,” Sapolsky said.

“It’s extinguishing a normal behavior”—avoidance of cats—”and replacing it with this incredibly maladaptive opposite.”

(Read related story: “Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms” [September 1, 2005].)

Vyas’s team found that Toxoplasma, which forms cysts in the brain, tends to concentrate in an area of the brain called the amygdala.

Because that region is linked to fear and anxiety, the finding provides a new clue to how the parasite manipulates behavior.

Sapolsky, Vyas, and their colleagues reported their findings Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Manuel Berdoy, a zoologist at Oxford University in England, called the new finding “a delight.”

He and Joanne Webster, a researcher at Imperial College London, had previously found that Toxoplasma-infected rodents gravitated toward cat odors.

The new study advances scientists’ understanding of how the parasite pulls off the trick, Berdoy said.

He called it “astonishing that [T. gondii] may be able to target specifically the neural pathways responsible for processing cat odors.

“It’s incredible that the parasite would be able to alter a response—cat aversion—that is so ingrained in the rats’ psyche,” Berdoy said.