Deep in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest, there grows a type of parasitic fungus, Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani, which when rooted in an ant, can take over the insect’s brain and destroy it once the victim reaches an ideal growing place for the killer fungi.
David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State University, made the morbid discovery while studying various fungal growths and insect victims according to his study published March 2 in the journal PLoS one. Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani is actually comprised of four different species of killer fungi.
The infected insect victims wander through the rainforest until they reach a pre-determined location and clamp into the leaves of a shrub. At this point, the killer fungi bursts out of the ant’s head and neck.
Suddenly that cheesy B-list sci-fi movie about mind control and exploding heads doesn’t seem that far-fetched anymore. And this makes you hope that these so-called “zombie” fungi stay far, far away from humans.
To read more, check out National Geographic news.
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