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The zombie-ant fungus is easily identifiable when its reproductive structure becomes apparent on its dead host, usually a carpenter ant. At the end of its life cycle, O. unilateralis typically generates a single, wiry yet pliant, darkly pigmented stroma which arises from the dorsal pronotum region of the ant once it is dead. [8]
The ant clamps its jaws around the plant in a "death grip" and following, mycelia grow from the ant's feet and stitch them to the surface of the plant. [9] The spores released from the ant carcass fall to the ground and infect other ants that come in contact with the spores so that this cycle continues. [10]
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O. camponoti-balzani infects ants, and eventually kills the hosts after they move to an ideal location for the fungus to spread its spores. This has earned the species names such as “zombie fungus”, given the fungus has been observed to cause its hosts to bite hard into the substrate it stands on, so that the fungus can then stably grow. [2]
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Fungal disease is a major public health threat in real life. “The Last of Us” on HBO imagines outbreak of zombie fungus that controls the brain of the infected. Fungal disease is a major ...
Camponotini is a tribe containing 2 extinct ant genera and 8 extant ant genera, including Camponotus (carpenter ants). [1] Ants in the Camponotini tribe are the primary hosts of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis , also called the zombie-ant fungus.
In this case, an infected person becomes a "hungry", a zombie thirsting for blood. In the fiction, Dr. Caldwell explains that the human-infecting fungus is a mutated form of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (a group of species now split off from Cordyceps) which alters the behaviour of infected insects. The children of infected mothers, however ...