Loligo beta-MSP

John Cmar, who I imagine was not a fan of that nickname, said, “Outlaw, I think we’ve figured out what the bioweapon is, and this is a doozy. It’s so simple that we would never have thought of it. I didn’t, actually, until that discussion you and I had about speed of onset. I kept knocking down your theories because nothing in nature could cause that specific a personality change in so short a time period. Well … I was wrong. Granted, no virus, spores, fungi, or bacterium could do that, but we were looking in the wrong place.”

“Skip to the part where this makes sense,” I barked.

“Sure, sure,” said John, and his excitement crackled like electricity. “I started looking into causative agents of behavioral change in all known species with notably unusual onsets. I found several, but one really stood out. Loligo beta-microseminoprotein.”

“What in the wide blue fuck is that?”

“It’s a protein. Loligo beta-MSP for short,” he explained. “Oh, and get this—it’s found in the longfin inshore squid.”

“Squid? As in a squid squid?”

“Doryteuthis pealeii,” he said with a weird kind of pride. “A species of squid of the family Loliginidae, common in the North Atlantic.” I found an old chum bucket outside of the crab shack, turned it over, and sat down.

“And this is a bioweapon?”

“In a way,” John said. “Look, here’s the skinny. Males of a variety of egg-laying species are attracted to the sight of eggs, which is what drives them to produce sperm to fertilize them. That’s shorthand, but you get the idea. But the female longfin squid covers her eggs with the Loligo beta-MSP protein and it causes the males to fly into a violent rage and attack any other male in the vicinity. The upshot is that only the toughest and most aggressive male gets to fertilize the eggs. Darwin would love this.”
-Rage pg. 324-325, Kindle Edition.