Internet Issues Warning As Mouse Filmed Snuggling With Kittens

Tom and Jerry, Sylvester and Tweety Pie, cats and small animals have been portrayed as mortal enemies for a very long time.

Despite this paradigm, through the magic of social media, many incidences of cats and their prey animals have now been documented.

One such incident was captured by TikTok user Angela Mantha in a video with over 346,000 views.

In the video, Mantha's ginger cat can be seen nursing her kittens while the mouse snuggles in as well.

"Cat & mouse chronicles continue... yes I think I inherited a new pet! gonna keep him as long as my mama cat allows it!" reads the caption.

Many users in the comments suspected that the mouse may have toxoplasmosis, a condition caused by the single celled parasite Toxoplasma gondii which "can eliminate infected mice's fear of felines—a brain hijack that leads to a potentially fatal attraction," according to an article by Laura Sanders in Science News.

"Toxoplasmosis is an infection caused by a microscopic parasite called Toxoplasma gondii," report the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC states that more than 30 million people in the U.S. carry the toxoplasma parasite and it can cause "severe illness in infants infected before birth (when their mothers are newly infected just before or during pregnancy), or in persons with a weakened immune system."

Cats can get toxoplasma infection from eating infected animals, or anything containing contaminated feces "from another cat that is shedding the microscopic parasite in its feces," say the CDC. "After a cat has been infected, it can shed the parasite for up to two weeks. The parasite becomes infective one to five days after it is passed in the feces of the cat. The parasite can live in the environment for many months and contaminate soil, water, fruits and vegetables, sandboxes, grass where animals graze for food, litter boxes, or any place where an infected cat may have defecated."

People with healthy immune systems who become infected with toxoplasma often are unaware and have no symptoms, or experience some flu-like symptoms. People with weakened immune systems may experience severe symptoms, according to the CDC.

"The most common symptoms in people with HIV infection are headache, confusion, and fever. Other symptoms include seizures, poor coordination, and nausea or vomiting," the CDC says.

It is also possible that infants can be infected before birth. "Most infants infected with toxoplasma before birth show no symptoms at birth," report the CDC, adding that "many are likely to develop symptoms later in life." Symptoms can include vision loss, mental disability and seizures.

The parasite rarely causes clinical disease in cats, according to the Cornell Feline Health Center, however, occasionally "a clinical disease called toxoplasmosis occurs, often when the cat's immune response cannot stop the spread of tachyzoite forms. The disease is more likely to occur in cats with suppressed immune systems, including young kittens and cats with feline leukemia virus (FeLV) or feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)."

The most common symptoms of toxoplasmosis include fever, loss of appetite and lethargy, according to the Cornell Feline Health Center, and "other symptoms may occur depending upon whether the infection is acute or chronic, and the location of the parasite in the body."

The treatment for cats with toxoplasmosis is often a course of the antibiotic clindamycin, according to the Cornell Feline Health Center, "either alone or in combination with corticosteroids if there is significant inflammation of the eyes or central nervous system."

Cat owners can protect both themselves and their pets from toxoplasmosis by changing the cat litter box regularly, covering outdoor sandboxes, feeding your cat dry or commercial food and not raw meat, according to the CDC.

Users in the TikTok post's comments section shared their concerns, with one writing: "Did you get it checked out? the mouse doesn't have toxoplasmosis?"

"If the mouse has it in the house you can be 100 percent the cat either had it or has it," commented one user.

Another warned: "It's got toxoplasmosis, be really careful because it's so so dangerous to kittens."

Newsweek has reached out to Mantha via TikTok for comment.

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