🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (13 tweets)

Vetala. A snake spirit."Sam meets Krissy and confirms that her father is a hunter called Lee Chambers who is missing. Sam finds a map and information hidden in Lee's room showing that he was chasing a Vetala."https://t.co/POdDZZi0Jj

Ok, What is Vetala?"Hindu [...] an evil spirit who haunts cemeteries and takes demonic possession of corpses. They make their displeasure known by troubling humans. They can drive people mad, kill children, and cause miscarriages, but also guard villages"https://t.co/AGLFH1Iq4U

A spirit that possesses people and cause miscarriages? Hmmhttps://t.co/3YsMKegt8E

A snake 'spirit' that can cause problems but also protect?"A snake 'spirit' that can cause problems but also protects?akes [...] T. gondii GRA6 gene were detected from 55 (80.88%) of 68 snakes brains."https://t.co/1xHGfGfmZu

Rikki-Tikki-Tavihttps://t.co/RHqSoUnnpo

Mongooses infected with T Gondiihttps://t.co/cEbydkqKDhhttps://t.co/X6c1h3WC2oNeat.

Not all mongooses tho. Why?"Not detecting T. gondii in the mongooses was a surprising result given its occurrence in mongooses on other Caribbean islands and the high seroprevalence in feral cats and domestic animals on St. Kitts."https://t.co/dABdYyRg88Not in the snakes?

That's right, I found a weird example of a mongoose apparently immune to T. Gondii because of a show about a hindu demon (technically a jinn) and one of my favorite children's cartoon shows.https://t.co/PQwKc6LF38

That Herpestes auropunctatus mongoose on St. Kitts seems to be similar to the one they talk about in this video about invasive cats;Where they became invasive; instead of eating rats and snakes, just killed the birds.https://t.co/bwiejXGOXShttps://t.co/tqLq368IBN

The wikipedia page list two snakes on the island of St. Kittshttps://t.co/3Nfgm603aRTyphlops monastus "Montserrat Worm" (very smol snek)Alsophis rufiventris "Red-bellied Racer" (a tree dwelling snek)Both seem to eat insects, snails, slugs, and small crawlies. Not rodents.

So given the mongoose (https://t.co/aw1UFq76Uw) on St. Kitts eats all sorts of things; is it safe to assume that not having many snakes, the only other vector for T gondii would be small mammals? and they only seem to have red squirrels, which are hit-or-miss on infection rates.

If you don't eat anything infected with T Gondii, you don't get T gondii. Not so surprising. The feral cats being positive could be explained by reinfection in how they deposit fecal wastes. Mongooses don't just shit anywhere https://t.co/Pe7C8q3DLp https://t.co/85lFmpiS4X

Bunch of videos suggest cats don't seem to get along with mongoose, suggesting territorial division when splayed out over time. E.g.https://t.co/MTFcsG9sb3