Why Is West Nile Virus Fatal to Crows?
West Nile Virus is a pain in the you know what to most of the species it can infect (like humans) but there is only one species that it kills 100% of the time. That is the crow. Why? What does WNV or the mosquito that carries WNV have against the crow? Crows do not eat mosquitoes. They eat dead things. And dying things. Like small mammals and birds that are lying around listlessly dying from West Nile Virus encephalitis, too weak to fight off the swarms of mosquitoes that fly over them, drinking their blood, sucking up all that West Nile Virus rich plasma----
Is that it? Did West Nile Virus evolve to kill crows because they kill the source of the blood and the infection? Or, to put it another way, was the variation of West Nile Virus that was 100% fatal to crows the one that was most successful because with the crows out of the way there were more warm but not quite dead infected bodies lying around to spread the infection?
The good news is the crows and ravens won and the West Nile Virus is gone. Gone riddance. Worst headache of my whole god damned life. I think I might be part crow.
