Real Life Zombies

Summary of "Absurd Creature of the Week: The Zombie Ant and the Fungus That Controls Its Mind"by Matt Simon

Matt Simon wrote about the zombified ant being controlled by parasites. Penn State Scientists have discovered that zombified ants known to South America have been seen in America. These "zombie ants" are caused by the fungi in the genus Ophiocordyceps that uses pressure "equivalent to the wheel of a 747" to move through the ant's exoskeleton and take control of its brain. (Simon, 2014) It then guides the ant to a very specific place on the bottom of a leaf around 25 cm above the ground where the ant bites onto the vein of the leaf. Once it is in the right position, the ant dies and the fungus grows a stalk out of the back of the ants head, this stalk then "rains spores down onto the ant's fellow workers below" and starts the cycle again. The ants do try to find and move out all sick ants, but the fungi is still able to destroy entire colonies. An behavioral ecologist at Penn States named David Hughes said, "We're discovering that over half of life on Earth is parasitic. But only a tiny minority of parasites do mind-control. And why is that? What is the push in order to control the behavior of your host." (Simon, 2014)

I could not believe this article when I first read it, "zombified ants" sounds like the name of a bad rock band and not a real life event. As I read the article I thought things like; "Why have I never heard about this?", "Omg, fungus is so gross!" and "How is this able to work?". Since there is A LOT of talk about zombies in movies, TV shows, books, and basically all forms of media, why has no one heard about this fungus? Earth amazes me everyday and I have so many questions about how this parasite controls its host and why don't more fungus use this technique, but I guess I will just have to wait until scientists discover more about this particular, peculiar parasite.

Simon, M. (2013, September 13). Absurd Creature of the Week: The Zombie Ant and 

     the Fungus that Controls Its Mind. Retrieved from WIRED website: 

     http://www.wired.com/2013/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-zombie-ant-fungus/ 

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