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[via Professor Hex]

Zombie ants controlled by fungus

Parasite manipulates infected ants into dying where fungus prefers to be

In a bizarre parasitic death sentence, a fungus turns carpenter ants into the walking dead and gets them to die in a spot that's perfect for the fungus to grow and reproduce.

Scientists have no clue how the fungus takes control of the brains of ants so effectively. But a new study in the September issue of the American Naturalist reveals an incredible set of strategies that ensue.

The carpenter ants nest high in the canopy of a forest in Thailand, and they trek to the forest floor to forage. The fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, prefers to end up on the undersides leaves sprouting from the northwest side of plants that grow on the forest floor, the new study showed. That's where temperature, humidity and sunlight are ideal for the fungus to grow and reproduce and infect more ants.

Once infected by the fungus, an ant is compelled to climb down from the canopy to the low leaves, where it clamps down with its mandibles just before it dies.

"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," said study leader David P. Hughes of Harvard University.

After the ant dies, the fungus continues to grow inside it. By dissecting victims, Hughes and colleagues found that the parasite converts the ant's innards into sugars that help the fungus grow. But it leaves the muscles controlling the mandibles intact to make sure the ant keeps its death grip on the leaf.

The fungus also preserves the ant's outer shell, growing into cracks and crevices to reinforce weak spots, thereby fashioning a protective coating that keeps microbes and other fungi out.

"The fungus has evolved a suite of novel strategies to retain possession of its precious resource," Hughes said.

After a week or two, spores from the fungus fall to the forest floor, where other ants can be infected.

Making nests in the forest canopy might be an evolved ant strategy to avoid infection, Hughes figures. The ants also seem to avoid foraging under infected areas. This too might be an adaptive strategy to avoid infection, but more study is needed to confirm it, he said.

How the fungus controls ant behavior remains unknown. "That is another research area we are actively pursuing right now," Hughes said.

[Link]

Fascinating - thanks for that monster. Unfortunately, I immediately flashed on certain memories of my second ex-wife.

monster wrote:How the fungus controls ant behavior remains unknown. "That is another research area we are actively pursuing right now," Hughes said.

[Link]

barracuda wrote:Unfortunately, I immediately flashed on certain memories of my second ex-wife.

I hear ya. You might just be referring to a controlling personality, I don't know. But there are real psychic vampires out there. I've dated a few. While they could manipulate/control me to a great extent, it wasn't from any power they had; it was like they were feeding off of me, turning my own life force against me.

Dammit, I hijacked my own thread. It's supposed to be about the military controlling us with fungus. But, whatever - As Above, So Below.

monster wrote:Scientists have no clue how the fungus takes control of the brains of ants so effectively. But a new study in the September issue of the American Naturalist reveals an incredible set of strategies that ensue.

The carpenter ants nest high in the canopy of a forest in Thailand, and they trek to the forest floor to forage. The fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, prefers to end up on the undersides leaves sprouting from the northwest side of plants that grow on the forest floor, the new study showed. That's where temperature, humidity and sunlight are ideal for the fungus to grow and reproduce and infect more ants.

Once infected by the fungus, an ant is compelled to climb down from the canopy to the low leaves, where it clamps down with its mandibles just before it dies.

"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," said study leader David P. Hughes of Harvard University.

No, thats impossible, the fungus doesn't even have a brain!
Heresy, I say.

Oh man, I love this shit.

Here's a vid of the fungal ant parasites in action :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOQ0VU24xw

Allow me to dump some links and such, all under the heading "Parasites that control/modify the behavior of their hosts":

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overviews of parasite manipulation of host behavior:

http://www.zoology.ufl.edu/bolker/eep/notes/week5.html

http://www.boloji.com/rt3/rt278.htm

http://www.boloji.com/rt3/rt279.htm

http://discovermagazine.com/2000/aug/co ... he%20world

Slideshow thingy:

http://discovermagazine.com/photos/04-z ... ntrol-them

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Toxoplasmosis - parasitic protozoan that makes rats unafraid of cats, and in the many many humans infected, it also seems to change hormone levels, sex ratio of offspring, psychology (infected men tend to score higher in paranoia, whereas for women toxoplasmosis seems to lead to higher levels of social trust and sexual promiscuity), and more ...

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/20 ... asters.php

http://www.livescience.com/animals/0704 ... urine.html

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/parasite/2 ... 04385.html

http://human-infections.suite101.com/ar ... d_behavior

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Zombie snails video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw

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"The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water."

- video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu9bqt2OgFM
- articles:
- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... asite.html

- http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7927


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Ant parasite turns host into ripe red berry, biologists discover

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases ... ants.shtml



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"life is certainly no beach when you’re a parasitic worm larva less than half a millimetre in length living on a murky lake bottom. Especially when, to reproduce, you face the Herculean task of making your way into a bird’s bloodstream ... the fluke first hitches a ride with a fish ... Once they have wormed their way into a rainbow trout’s bloodstream, the fluke larvae lodge themselves in their host’s eye, causing a cataract to form. The trout is then left to fumble around blindly, vulnerable to birds in search of their next meal. And while this already seems like a step towards success for the worm, its manipulating schemes don’t end here.

Rainbow trout are known to adapt their skin colour to blend in with their surroundings, with the amount of light entering their eyes determining how dark they become. When a parasite-induced cataract clouds their vision, the fish are seemingly fooled into thinking they are in a dark environment, and adjust their skin tone accordingly.

A parasitized trout consequently stands out like a sore thumb in light environments, making it an easy target for birds, and thereby allowing the fluke to complete its life cycle as it passes into the bird’s bloodstream."

link: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/ ... parasites/

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"in yellow dungflies, E. muscae directly manipulates host perching behaviour causing infected dungflies to perch abnormally in a highly specific manner. This new perching position, which involves changes in perching site, body posture and orientation on the plant, appears to be designed to meet the fungus's requirements for efficient spore dispersal and host infection."

http://www.jstor.org/pss/49995

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"Consider the case of the thorny-headed worm, which spends its childhood growing in the belly of a pill bug, a small terrestrial crustacean that feeds on detritus and dry leaves and, occasionally, worm eggs scattered therein. But on reaching parasitic puberty, the worm requires a very different environment: an avian digestive tract. The worm wants the pill bug to be eaten by a bird. Fine: many birds will eat pill bugs if given the chance. But the worm has a tight schedule to keep, and it can’t afford to wait around and hope some industrious starling discovers its tasty crustacean housing. After all, a pill bug normally spends the sunlit hours when diurnal birds are about coiled away like a petite armadillo, often beneath some unpeckable tree stump or stone.

Through mechanisms that remain mysterious, then, the impatient parasite induces a precise sort of madness in its host. It prompts the poor creature to defy all known pill bug precautions, to venture forth in broad daylight and crawl onto a light-colored surface, where the dark pill bug stands out so starkly it might as well flash a sign saying, Snack Time! As a result, infected pill bugs end up being eaten by birds at a far higher rate than are their unparasitized peers, and the thorn-headed worm lives on. "

from good article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/scien ... ref=slogin

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This is one of my favorites: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/010306.html

... multiple host life cycles w/ taking over of ant nervous systems to make them climb up and clamp onto the top of grass blades to find their way into the sheep they need to reproduce ...

Of course, nothing like that could ever happen to the human race. We just act in all sorts of ways that aren't in our interest and can be downright threatening to our survival as a species, because that's just how we roll.

Pele'sDaughter wrote:Of course, nothing like that could ever happen to the human race. We just act in all sorts of ways that aren't in our interest and can be downright threatening to our survival as a species, because that's just how we roll.

Yup.
But let's not suppose that our problems are solely the making of our evil parasite overlords. And even if they were, we need to overthrow them or become aware of them before we can make amends. Either way, there is no one to look to but ourselves.

Thanks so much for the OP, monster. I saw something on tv about that fungus years ago, & came up empty on a web search last year.

Thanks to Zap for the related info, as well.

I view these phenomena as an aspect of Morphic Resonance.

In all likelihood, though, the author of the OP has this exactly wrong. The fungus does not control the ant's behavior, but the ant's behavior has--over a long, long time--affected the current culture of the fungus. The fungus grows in that location because that's where the ants die.

Pele'sDaughter wrote:Of course, nothing like that could ever happen to the human race. We just act in all sorts of ways that aren't in our interest and can be downright threatening to our survival as a species, because that's just how we roll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmo ... f_the_host
Share this with your favourite christian for clarification on gods position regarding sin induced by parasites

freemason9 wrote:

In all likelihood, though, the author of the OP has this exactly wrong. The fungus does not control the ant's behavior, but the ant's behavior has--over a long, long time--affected the current culture of the fungus. The fungus grows in that location because that's where the ants die.

ZOMBIE STREETWALKERS CONTROLLED BY LOCAL BAND

In an as-yet unexplained phenomenon, local bands seem able to lure unsuspecting people on the street into dark places where they have difficulty seeing and cannot hear the words of others they enter with.

Once infected, the streetwalkers are prone to breaking into bizarre movements in front of the band, gyrating their hips, waving their arms and bobbing their heads in a fashion consistent with madness. Soon, streetwalkers are separated from their money and fed liquid poison on an intermittent reinforcement schedule until they appear stuporous and/or belligerent.

"The band accurately manipulates the streetwalkers into gyrating where the band prefers to play," said Bill Graham, a leading musicologist. Indications are that the band infiltrates the streetwalkers' inner consciousness, blocking out preferences for other forms of entertainment but leaving the buying impulse intact, which can result in repeat purchases of the band's music.

Scientists have no clue how the bands take control of the streetwalkers' brains so effectively.

No, thats impossible, the fungus doesn't even have a brain!

ummm, what is a brain?

and as you look at smaller and smaller organisms, where does the soul, or consciousness stop existing?

why does a fungus not have a brain?

smiths wrote:

No, thats impossible, the fungus doesn't even have a brain!

ummm, what is a brain?

and as you look at smaller and smaller organisms, where does the soul, or consciousness stop existing?

why does a fungus not have a brain?

In case you missed it, that was sarcasm.

"and as you look at smaller and smaller organisms, where does the soul, or consciousness stop existing?"

I don't think that it ever does. Examples like this are pretty thrilling, imho.