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Scythemantis
But...coolest parasite? I say the strepsipteran (twisted-wing parasites)
http://www.strepsiptera.uni-rostock.de/e/strepsiptera_images/xeve_m_sem.html image gallery
It doesn't do mind-control, but it has all the weirdness you could ever want.
-Larve are spiny, leaping little grubs that hide out on flowers until a bee comes by.
Adult males are tiny flies with unusual flapping wings and totally unique eyes (similar in structure to those of a trilobite. No other modern animal shares them), while the adult females are blind, limbless parasites in the bodies of bees. Their heads protrude from the body wall of their host, and the male will mate with them through an opening in their face.
Later, when the host lands on a flower, the parasite upchucks its young through the same opening and they lie in wait for other bees to come by. They're spiny, able to leap, and use an acid to dissolve their way into the host exoskeleton. Usually they wait until they're brought back to the hive where they can enter bee larvae and grow up with them.
Amazingly the male uses his VISION to find a mate, which would be only a tiny insect face poking out of a honeybee's abdomen. It's the most sophisticated sense of sight in the insect kingdom, if not the world.
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