What do you think of this fact?
Zombies are real. They’re just very small, have six legs and live in the rainforest. The fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infects carpenter ants and takes control of their behavior.
A bite on schedule
An infected ant leaves its colony and its usual trails. It climbs up a plant and clamps its jaws onto the main vein on the underside of a leaf. Researchers call this the “death grip.”
Nothing about it is random. In a study in a Thai rainforest, the dead ants hung about 25 centimeters above the ground. They usually made their final bite around noon and were dead by sunset. The spot seems ideal for the fungus: shady and humid enough for it to grow.
Then comes the creepiest part. A stalk grows out of the ant’s head, with spores ripening at its tip. They rain down onto the forest floor, where the next ants are on the move. And the cycle starts over.
A fossil from Germany
So how long has this been going on? A team led by biologist David Hughes found the answer in the Messel Pit in Hesse, Germany. There they discovered a fossil leaf with exactly the kind of scars the death grip leaves on a leaf vein.
The leaf is 48 million years old. According to the researchers, that makes it the oldest known evidence of a parasite controlling its host’s behavior. The study was published in 2010 in the journal Biology Letters.
The zombie fungus even inspired a video game. According to NPR, Neil Druckmann, the creative mind behind “The Last of Us,” got the idea from the BBC documentary “Planet Earth,” which shows a Cordyceps fungus taking over insects.
Don’t worry, humans aren’t on the menu. This fungus specializes in its ants and has apparently been running the same schedule for millions of years.