O/T Parasite-Infested Zombie Ants Walked the Earth 48 Million Years Ago

[Guest guest]

Parasite-Infested Zombie Ants Walked the Earth 48 Million Years Ago

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/08/18/parasite-infested-zombie-an\

ts-walked-the-earth-48-million-years-ago/

Here's one that I didn't touch on in DISCOVER's creepy gallery of zombie

animals controlled by mind-altering parasites: A parasitic fungus called

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis that infects a plain old carpenter ant and takes

over its brain, leading the ant to bite into the vein that runs down the center

of a leaf on the underside. The ant dies shortly thereafter, but the fungus

gains the nutrients it needs to grow this crazy stalk out of the ant's body and

release spores to create the next generation of ant-controlling fungi.

This cryptic cycle has been going on for at least 48 million years.

In a study forthcoming in Biology Letters, Harvard's argues that a

fossilized leaf found in a fossil-rich part of Germany's Rhine Rift Valley bears

the scars of the ant's trademark death bite. The ant bites down hard so the

fungus will have a stable position when it grows a stalk out of the ant's head.

But even so, says, he doubted the mark would turn up in the fossil

record—that is, until serendipity reared its random head:

" I thought it was a very, very long shot to find such a fossil, but indeed, as

luck would have it, two paleobotanists, Conrad Labandeira at the sonian

Institution in Washington and Torsten Wappler at the Steinmann Institute in

Bonn, were sitting around wondering how that particular damage type might be

explained " [MSNBC].

Why, though, should we believe these 48 million year old ant bites came from

zombie carpenter ants and not just run-of-the-mill, self-determining ants

seeking some nutrition?

doesn't think the bites could be anything else — such as the vein-cutting

behaviour exhibited by some other ants or beetles during feeding — because the

location on the leaf vein and shape of the marks are so unusual. " It is not

normal ant behaviour to bite into the leaf vein because it has no real

nutritional value to the ant and can in fact be toxic in some plant species, " he

says [Nature].

If ' dating is correct, then the fungi have had plenty of time to

fine-tune their zombifying practice into the ruthlessly efficient mind control

we see today. The Guardian reports that the fungi don't care for the conditions

at the canopy or the base of a forest, so they infect ants at a middle altitude.

This works out well, because once they grow the stalk and fire the spores, those

spores drift down to the forest floor where they can infect more ants and

continue the parasitic cycle.

Unfortunately for the victimized (and the easily grossed-out reader), these kind

of parasitism is stunningly widespread. Check out the gallery for more of these

mind-controlling parasites, like:

the wasp that makes a spider spin a cocoon for its larvae, which kill the spider

once it's done

the worms that make pill bugs lay out in the open so they'll be eaten by birds

and the barnacle that takes over a crab and becomes its new master.