"Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

Check this National Geographic article out and speculate with fear:

The fungus species can infect an ant, take over its brain, and then kill the insect once it moves to a location ideal for the fungi to grow and spread their spores.

All four known fungi species live in Brazil’s Atlantic rain forest, which is rapidly changing due to climate change and deforestation, said study leader David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State University.

Hughes and colleagues made the discovery after noticing a wide diversity of fungal growths emerging from ant victims, according to the March 2 study in the journal PLoS ONE.

“It is tempting to speculate that each species of fungus has its own ant species that it is best adapted to attack,” Hughes said.

National Geographic: “Zombie” Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “"Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

  1. I don’t know how to fight swarms of ants bent on destruction. We’d need air-tight metal living structures. Or we’d just need to move to space.

  2. Looks like fungi aren’t happy that they can’t move, i fear that they may start on with ants and move on to spiders, then small mammals, such as rats, then bigger mammals and then HUMANS!!! we HAVE to stop them!

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