Startling about the parasitic fungus that turns ants into living corpses

Carpenter ant - carpenter ant of tropical rainforest Brazil has a very uneventful life. In addition to taking care of food, shelter, fighting enemies, they also face a more horrifying thing - it's mushrooms.

When a sword is "infected" with a mushroom, it will turn into a living ant, no longer able to control its actions. This creature will cause ants to leave their home, enter the deep forest, find a suitable spot for fungi to thrive. After this living corpse lies under a leaf, it will bite the leaf with its teeth and fix it. That is the last act of this ant.

When a sword is "infected" with a mushroom, it will turn into a living ant.

After that, the mushroom will begin to grow inside the ant's body. Over time, the fungus will pierce through the ants' body, releasing fungal spores into the environment. The whole process can take a maximum of 10 days. 10 days of misery for that ant.

"We found that most of the cells in the host are fungal cells," said researcher David Hughes. "Basically, these mushroom-controlled animals are the ants."

We have known about the existence of this species of fungus and the living ants for a while, but scientists still do not understand how this fungus - O. unilateralis - conducts "hijacking" of the brain. how is an ant.

Previously, it was still called the "brain parasitic fungus," but the newly published study showed that the brains of these ant-infected ants were still intact. O. unilateralis mushroom controls the body of the ant by acting on the bundles of muscles on its body.

The brains of these ants are still intact.

To get this discovery, the first scientist discovered the chemical antifungal fungus - David Hughes has assembled a large research team of entomologists, geneticists, scientists Computer learning and microbiologists. The purpose of this study is to take a closer look at the molecular level interaction of the fungus with the ant species, at the most important stage in the process of biochemical confirmation: when ants fix themselves into the leaves.

According to research leader Maridel Fredericksen, this fungus secretes a special type of muscle tissue metabolite , controlling the ant limbs of the ant. However, it is unclear how this mushroom combines these transformations to fully grasp the control of ants.

In this study, the researchers introduced two types of host control fungi, O. unilateralis and Beauveria bassiana (which have a weaker effect, not turning into a true corpse). The difference between the two trials will show them the different effects, thereby concluding how O. unilateralis affects.

They use electron microscopy to create 3D models of infected hosts. Because of the huge amount of data collected, they had to use artificial intelligence to analyze the differences between fungal cells and ants' cells. Since then, it is clear how many percent of mushrooms this corpse has, and what percentage of ants.

Cells of the fungus O. unilateralis reproduce in almost the entire ant's body.

Experimental results will scare you. The cells of the fungus O. unilateralis reproduce in almost all of the ant's body, from the head to the chest, to the abdomen and legs. The mushroom turns into a cellular network in the ant's body, a biological network that completely controls the ability of the poor ants to move.

But most surprisingly, the fungus does not touch the ant's brain as we know it before.

"Normally, in animals, their behavior is controlled through brain signals sent to the muscles, but this time the results show that the fungus only controls the body of the ant" , the home Hughes science explains. Like the way a wire puppet is controlled.

However, we still do not know how to control the ant to find a leaf in the mushroom area that is prolific. It is possible that the mushroom does not take control of the brain will lift the secret for us. Previous studies have shown that this fungus can use chemicals to alter brain signals , which makes scientists believe that fungi must find ways to keep the brain of living ants until they find get a suitable leaf and bite it.

O. unilateralis does not hurt the brain.

Probably, fungi still need a part of the brain's brain power to be able to effectively control the ant body. More research is needed in the future, so that we can completely solve this secret.

After this study, we can still conclude that the O. unilateralis fungus does not hurt the brain, but it does not even touch this important part.

Besides, the researchers also discovered that mushrooms also have a "biological clock" of their own. Some mushroom genes work during the day, others work at night. It is noteworthy that the fungus always activates the gene specifically responsible for secreting protein at night, indicating that in addition to controlling fungal behavior completely, it knows exactly when to do it.

Nature is really scary.