In a dense forest in Thailand, a carpenter ant walks near a colony nest high in a tree canopy. She appears fine. The worker ant climbs down a tree trunk, apparently on her way to forage. Near the ground, the insect clamps her mandibles into the underside of a sapling leaf.
She never moves from the spot again.
What happened? The ant fell victim to the horrifying Ophiocordyceps unilateralis—a fungal parasite that, after infection, keeps an ant alive for a few hours, compelling its unsuspecting victim to die in the optimal place for the fungus to grow and produce.
While scientists have known for many years about this natural phenomenon, new research reveals just how precisely the fungus is able to control an ant’s brain.
Lead researcher of a study published in The American Naturalist, David P. Hughes of Harvard University, said, “The fungus accurately manipulates the infected ants into dying where the parasite prefers to be, by making the ants travel a long way during the last hours of their lives†(Science Daily).
Researchers found the majority of infected ants located about 10 inches from the ground and on the northwest side of a plant. These factors, along with temperature, humidity and sunlight, were perfectly suited for the fungus to grow.
Once an ant clamps down on a leaf and dies, the fungus is not finished with its insect host. The parasite liquefies an ant’s innards into sugar for food, but leaves the mandible muscles intact to ensure the fungus stay secured. It also uses the ant’s body as a protective shell from microbes and other fungus.
When the researchers placed infected insects higher in the canopy, the fungus struggled to sprout, or did not at all.
A few days after an ant dies, the fungus grows from the back of its head. About a week later, the parasite begins to rain down spores on passersby below, thus continuing a cycle that seems suited for a science-fiction novel: Fungus Creates Zombie Ants!
Instead, it is another example of God’s ever-fascinating creation.