Imagine this: a parasite has wormed its way into your body, making you a puppet. After several days of torture, you climb up the stem of a plant and are forced to hang on for dear life as the parasite sprouts from your head, killing you.
This is the reality for ants under the spell of Ophiocordyceps and Cordyceps, genuses of parasitic fungi whose spores infect insects, arthropods and even other fungi. These fungi typically live in warm and humid environments such as jungles or tropical rainforests. Ants alone, however, face the horrors of zombification and are Cordyceps’ and Ophiocordyceps’ most common victims. Cordyceps recently became well-known from the television and video game series, “The Last of Us,” which features a zombie-making mutated Cordyceps fungus. Luckily for fans of the show, these fungi don’t actually feast on humans.
Another well-known type of parasitic fungus is the Zombie Ant Fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis), which targets carpenter ants — not humans. The first written account of this fungus was in 1859 by Alfred Russell Wallace, but fossils of other similar ant-parasitizing fungi from 48 million years ago have been uncovered, as revealed in a 2010 ScienceDaily article. Although, it’s not really a zombifying fungus taking over the mind. A 2017 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that this fungus actually controls the ant’s body rather than its mind after scientists discovered fungal cells inside the ant but not in its brain.
Zombie Ant Fungus is special because it can make the ants act naturally and continue living their lives, unlike Cordyceps. This allows for the ant to stay within the colony and decreases the likelihood of death before the fungus is ready. When the spores fall down onto the ants, they break through the exoskeleton of an ant and infect its body, puppeting the ant for days, even weeks. When the optimal time arises, the ant finds the perfect conditions and death grips onto a leaf. The perfect conditions are the underside of leaf or twig, 25-30 centimeters above ground, the north side of a plant, 30 degrees Celsius, or on a plant vein. It can take three weeks for the fungi to grow and when it is ready, the spores flutter from the original and onto more unsuspecting ants, starting the cycle all over again. This can wipe out entire ant colonies as the infected ants are almost always still on their previous colony’s territory.
So, what does this mean for us? Will humans become the next fungus target? For Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps, it is not likely because our body temperature is warmer than their ideal type, according to Dr. George Thompson, Professor of Infectious Diseases at UC Davis, School of Medicine. Dr. Thomas also states that because we are far more complex than insects and arthropods, it is unlikely that those fungi can infect us. But due to factors like global warming and climate change, fungi such as Candida auris and Coccidioides have evolved to infect humans. But, at least we’re not ants infected by zombie fungus.
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