Zombie Ants and Killer Fungus

nibbles2004 writes "An article in the Guardian newspaper shows how parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control ants they infect, ultimately leading the ant to its death. The fungus controls the ant's movements to a suitable leaf and causes the ant to grip onto the leaf's central stem, allowing the fungus to spore, which will allow more ants to become infected."

Obligatory...

[millennial]

I wonder if the zombie ants have a higher chance of infecting others if the leaves they cling to are the leaves of GRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSS?

hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

M. Night Shiamalan will probably make a stupid movie about this.

Re:hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

... and it would somehow make money in the box office.

I may be wrong...

[Shadow Wrought]

But isn't this same fungus found in some humans, too? It doesn't cause them to climb trees, but it does tend to make them more aggressive, paranoid, and less able to deal with authority IIRC. I thought there was a /. story about it, and how the the higher a country's proportion of infection was, the more likely they were to have a better Soccer team...

Re:hmm..

[owlnation]

M. Night Shiamalan will probably make a stupid movie about this.

With a twist.

Re:hmm..

[MrNaz]

It's because there is a fungus that turns consumers into zombies.

Re:hmm..

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

Or George Romero will make an AWESOME one.

Re:What a bunch of bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a fungus aficionado, if there is such a thing, and here I was all excited that they'd actually made some progress explaining how the fungus causes the ants to carry out such very specific behaviors. And the summary made it sound like that... But it basically boiled down to a sentence or two at the end of the article saying "We think the fungus uses some kind of chemicals on the ants. We don't really know." What a bunch of bullshit.

Lighten up, Francis.

Re:Nope, that's toxoplasmosis

[Anonymous Coward]

... and has been linked to schizophrenia in humans

I heard that before ... but only from the voices in my head!

The cure...

[Drakkenmensch]

...is obviously giving the ants tiny red crowbars.