From the Cordyceps fungus family, this parasite has the capacity to do very nasty things indeed to ants. Once an ant walks through some of its fungal spores, the fungus bores its way into the insect and eventually takes over its nervous system and its brain. Then things get really weird. The fungus makes the ant climb up a tree and bite into a leaf. The ant soon dies and a long stalk grows from out of the back of its head, which then drops fungal spores on to the colony below so the cycle can begin again. ‘What’s rather spectacular in the case of the zombie ant fungi is that they are able to precisely control the behaviour of the host before it dies,’ said disease biologist David Hughes, assistant professor of entomology and biology at Pennsylvania State University, who has followed these intriguing organisms around the world. They can be found in the forests of countries such as Thailand, China, Australia and Brazil. He described what happens when a spore first attaches itself to an ant on the forest floor. ‘It does a rather interesting thing – it sticks tight so it can’t be pulled off and then it uses enzymes and pressure to blow a hole through the ant’s body.’ After two weeks growing inside the ant, the fungus is able to control its behaviour and produces chemicals which tell the ant to leave the rest of the colony. Dr Hughes is currently preparing a report which identifies how exactly these chemicals work. ‘The infected ant goes and latches itself on to a leaf in the understory vegetation of a tropical rainforest and this provides a perfect platform for when the spore-producing structure grows out of the back of the ant’s head,’ he added. ‘It’s one of the most complex examples of parasites controlling animal behaviour that we know about.’ youtube/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 15:55:49 +0000
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