Zombie is a kind of animal similar to the walking dead, it is said that it is due to the fact that the body does not decompose after death, in a long time, people do not believe that there are really zombies in the world, but the zombie movie in Hong Kong has greatly rendered the horror of zombies, so that some people begin to believe that zombies exist in the world, although it is impossible to know whether zombies really exist, but the existence of zombie ants is exactly the same as the description of zombies, that is, a pair of walking dead, In fact, due to the effect of being hosted by a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, in fact, in addition to zombie ants, there are some other animals that will also produce the same action behavior as zombie ants, this article will describe in detail for everyone the behavior of zombie ants, and introduce similar animal sexual behaviors on earth.
Introduction to Zombie Ants
A fungus that lived 48 million years ago was able to change and control an ant's behavior by releasing chemicals, turning it into a puppet of its own until the ant eventually died. The fungus, known scientifically as "Ophiocordyceps unilateralis," is found in evidence of its horrors found on fossil leaves in the Messer fossil pit near the German city of Darmstadt, which lived about 48 million years ago. Scientists have found that the parasitic fungus has evolved the ability to control its own parasitic animals as early as ancient times, even earlier than the uplift of the Himalayas.
Because in most cases, this behavior control, while powerful, is short-lived and generally does not leave a permanent imprint. The question now is what the motivation for this parasitic behavior is, and why they don't just kill the host, but control the host's brain and muscles before killing it. Of all parasitic objects, only a small fraction evolved the ability to manipulate host behavior. Scientists have yet to figure out exactly how parasitic fungi control infected ants, but they do know that parasitic fungi release alkaloid chemicals into ants.
The white fungus (left) in the Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis fungal population can grow from the head of a zombie ant that has been dead for two days. At the ant's joints, after the ant dies, the fungus quickly spreads the spores throughout the body. But in the first few days, it was difficult to detect signs of fungal presence from the outside.
How fungi form zombie ants
The lifespan of this organism is very unique, when the spores fall from the air to the ants, or when they meet on the rainforest floor, the ants begin to become infected. Once attached to the ant, the spores enter the ant's body through enzymes, and the fungi begin to grow in it. After about a week, chemicals released by the fungi can cause ants to disorient and bite leaf veins or other plants in the final moments before dying.
In the later stages of Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis infection, the fungus quickly eats nutrients from the zombie ants while beginning to open up "colonies" outside the body. Over time, they will become longer and more pronounced. Matures as a zombie fungus. In the final stages of infection, the fungus grows from the brain of a zombie ant, and the characteristics of different strains are different. Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis, forming a single stem, and Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani forms a forked stem.
According to the National Geographic website, scientists have found new zombie fungi in the Brazilian rainforest that are capable of infecting ants, occupying their brains and performing "mind control." Once ants move to the area that is best suited for them to grow and spread spores, they kill the killer and kill the ants. The fungus was originally thought to be a single species called "Ophiocordyceps unilateralis", but in fact had 4 distinct populations. And all can mentally control ants. All 4 known populations of this fungus live in the Atlantic rainforest of Brazil. The Atlantic rainforest is changing rapidly due to climate change and deforestation. Each fungus has ant prey that is best suited for their attack. This means that there are thousands of species of zombie fungi living in tropical forests around the world.
Will zombie ants reappear in humans?
In fact, in addition to zombie ants, there are several other types of zombie ant scenarios, but when this kind of thing is discovered, scientists have already begun to study this magical mechanism, because some people think that perhaps this parasitic type of fungus can have an effect on humans, so that humans also appear zombie ant scenarios, leading to human extinction, but through long-term research, scientists think that this kind of thing is impossible to happen.
Zombie ants explained in detail
Ants, in people's minds, have always been the embodiment of industriousness and unity, and because of their large groups and orderly action, even some insects that seem fierce and have bodies many times larger than them often become their meals, but recent research results show that under some specific conditions, ants can become "puppet zombies" driven by certain fungi.
This is truly a jaw-dropping discovery – according to evolutionary views, fungi should be one of the lowest life forms, plants form a more efficient energy circulation system and reproduction than fungi, and animals, due to the presence of nervous systems, form autonomous consciousness, apparently more advanced than plants. Although insects are one of the lowest life forms among animals, they are already higher life that is definitely beyond several levels compared to fungi, so why do ants fall into puppets of fungi?
Researchers have found traces of the fungus on the leaf fossils of the Messer Fossil Pit near the city of Darmstadt, Germany, which lived about 48,000 years ago, and scientists believe that this parasitic fungus has the ability to control its host animals as early as ancient times, even longer than the Himalayas.
The fungus, which is still alive on Earth today, usually parasitizes wood ants, which inhabit the top of tall trunks and build large nests somewhere in the canopy between branches. When wood ants descend to the surface to feed, they must pass through the forest cover, and this fungus is scattered among the mosses and weeds of the ground cover, and ants will infect this fungus when they pass through parasitic fungal clusters. As the fungus continues to grow in the ant's body and releases a chemical that affects the ant's behavior, the ant will gradually become a "zombie ant", and the "zombie ant" will gradually leave its colony and wander alone, specifically looking for the most tender leaves. They no longer have their own behavior and life, and completely become the "puppet" of the parasitic fungus, when they find the right leaf, they are close to the end of life, they will climb to the bottom of the selected leaf, bite the central leaf vein of the leaf with their jaws, and then quietly wait for death, the parasitic fungus will find a suitable place to live, and the leaves will become "ant graves".
On the ground cover and canopy, this fungus can not grow, only a certain height from the ground, but not up to the canopy of the leaves, is the most suitable place for fungal growth, scientists analysis may be related to humidity and temperature requirements. After the "zombie ant" dies, the mature parasitic fungus will "sprout" from its head, grow spores and launch them into the woodland at night, quietly waiting for the next prey to appear.
David Hughes, a professor at Harvard University in the United States who first studied and reported on this phenomenon, said: "In a range of 1 square meter, you can find 20 to 30 'ant graves'. The ants are all on the leaves at a certain distance from the ground, biting the main vein of the leaves. "The experience of ants before they die must be very painful, they use all their strength to leave the last mark on the world, and the bite marks on the leaves of their jaws are clearly dumbbell-shaped, so that researchers can identify this special "ant grave" leaf at a glance."
The researchers confirmed the fungus's behavior through a large number of examples and picture data, and in the course of the study, they inadvertently found a picture of a messer fossil, and the clear ant bite marks on the picture finally confirmed that this "zombie ant" existed 48 million years ago, and 48 million years ago, the Messer region happened to be a dense subtropical forest.
Professor Hughes judged that this could be considered the first case of behavior control, and perhaps the only evidence that could be discovered. Because in the vast majority of cases, this behavior control, although very powerful, is very short-lived and generally does not leave a permanent imprint. The question now is, what is the motivation for this parasitic behavior, and why don't they kill the host directly, but instead control the host's brain and muscles before killing the host? Of all known parasites, only a small fraction evolved the ability to manipulate host behavior.
Another scholar in the biological community proposed that according to the traditional principle of human division of species, compared with the more extensive group of plants and microorganisms, vertebrates and birds with more developed brains obviously have a higher level of life, from the perspective of the food chain, animals feed on plants, carnivores prey on herbivores, one life form has an overwhelming advantage over another life form, so the dominant human being of the earth naturally becomes the spirit of all things, and the close relatives of human beings are secondary higher life. The existence of parasitic bacteria poses a powerful challenge to this divisional form, and their ability to control the manipulation of the host is almost beyond that of humans, and humans rely on the technological means they have developed in the process of evolution to achieve their goals, and this fungus relies only on instinct, so in a sense, whether the parasitic fungus can be regarded as a higher life form than humans.
The Hollywood blockbuster "Alien" describes the parasitic behavior of alien life on humans, and the parasitic humans themselves have no choice at all, and the space hero returning from the alien space hero puts the shotgun into his mouth and tries to redeem himself with the last self-consciousness, but the head that was shot off by the shotgun quickly grows back - is this shocking scene like the ant that bites the leaves?
So this also further sounded the alarm for human beings, if human beings continue to endlessly plunder nature, and eventually inevitably lead to the crazy retaliation of nature, when the environment deteriorates to irreparable, resulting in parasitic bacteria evolving to the point where humans can be used as hosts, then how do human beings face such a crazy fate that they cannot choose?
Get to know other zombie phenomena on Earth
Zombie ants are just one of the zombie phenomena that exist on the earth, and there are other zombie phenomena that are the same as zombie ants, so let's take you to know.
Betty parasite
Betty's scientific name for the parasite is "cerathotoa italica", which scientists call "Betty". In March 2012, media reported that betty parasites were found in the Mediterranean Sea, parasitizing in the mouth of seabream, devouring the host's tongue and then replacing it.
It is reported that in some waters, almost half of the fish are infected with this parasite. The "Betty" parasite swims into the gills of the juvenile fish and gradually swallows the tip of the fish's tongue, thus replacing this position, and obtaining nutrients by sucking the blood of the fish, and then growing and reproducing.
The findings show that nearly half of the fish in one Italian water are infected with this terrible parasite, swimming into the gills of the juveniles, then gradually swallowing the tip of its tongue and taking this place to feed on the blood of the fish.
Betty's parasite is a very scary creature that reminds people of sci-fi horror movies about alien creatures, in contrast, this parasite has a high degree of environmental suitability and can successfully survive in the environment. Unfortunately, overfishing will disrupt the ecological balance of this parasite, as well as its coordination with the overall ecological environment. Through this research, we realized that fish in protected waters are healthier and more adaptable for people to eat.
Toxoplasma gondii
Toxoplasma gondii is an intestinal coccidiosis of felines, discovered in 1908 by French scholars Nicollle and Manceaux in the hepatosplenic monocytes of the Rigid-toed Rat in North Africa, and the body is arch-shaped, named Toxoplasma gondii. Toxoplasma gondii is an important opportunistic pathogen that can cause serious consequences when the host immune function is low. However, the toxoplasma gondii can only breed in the stomachs of cats, and studies have found that Toxoplasma gondii infection can potentially affect human behavior and even the culture of the world. In eight of the knockout stages of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa, all countries with high rates of Toxoplasma gondii infection won.
The history of arch life includes sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction, the whole process requires two kinds of hosts, in the feline to complete the sexual generation, but also to asexual proliferation, so the cat is the final host and intermediate host of Toxoplasma gondii. In other animals or humans, only asexual reproduction can be completed, and the intermediate host is the most intermediate. Sexual reproduction is limited to intrathelial cells of the small intestine of cats, called intraintestinal development. Toxoplasma can make the mouse forget its dislike of the cat, and even be attracted to the cat, and then the cat will easily eat the mouse. Scientists have also found that this toxoplasma can also be transmitted to humans, affecting human thinking, such as more easily think of cats and mice, and be sure to stay away from cat poop.
Echinococcus
Echinoptera phylum invertebrates, about 600 species. There are hooks on the mouth. Worldwide distribution, body length from less than 1 cm to more than 50 cm. Both are parasitic, adults parasitize in vertebrates (usually fish) and larvae parasitize arthropods (insects, arachnoids, crustaceans), called echinocephalics. It crosses the intestinal wall into the blood cavity, grows a sac, and develops a spinosauridae that resembles a small adult. Retract into the kiss and enter a dormant phase, called Cystic spiny larvae. After being swallowed by end-time celebrants (vertebrates), echinocephalus protrudes from the intestine, burrows into the intestinal wall with its mouth, and matures. If the cystic echinococcus is swallowed by other hosts, it passes through the intestinal wall into the body cavity, forming a cyst, but still infectious, so that if one host is swallowed by the terminal host, it can still develop and mature.
Golden Bee
The golden wasp enslaves the cockroach by pricking the precise position of the cockroach's brain and injecting a venom that controls the mind. This parasitic bee will turn the zombified cockroach into a private nursery. It lays an egg on the body of a completely relaxed host, and the larvae swallow the cockroach's organs and finally burrow out of the cockroach's body.
Nematodes
Crickets and grasshoppers infected with a nematodes will begin a life of doom and will eventually commit suicide. This parasitic nematode that grows in crickets eventually forms larvae into the water, and they can grow 3-4 times as long as crickets in cricket hosts. Once they mature, nematodes will directly turn crickets into "zombies" and willingly throw themselves into the water to drown. In this way, nematodes are able to multiply, sending and scattering more larvae.
Female crab slave worm
The female crab slave worm looks for a gap in the shell, and then stabs a "hollow dagger" into the crab's body, and she herself "injects" herself into the crab's body along the "dagger" and sheds a layer of shell. After entering the crab's body, this slimy crab slave worm began to occupy the throne. She grows "root whiskers", which stretch out to various parts of the crab's body, wrap around the crab's eye handle, and penetrate into the crab's claws and feet. The female crab slave insect continues to suck the body fluids of the crab to grow until it finally bursts out of the crab's body. A crab occupied by creatures will abandon its own needs to serve its owner. Crab hosts no longer waste nutrients on themselves, but instead stagger forward in search of food for feeding their foster owners.
Parasitic wasps
A parasitic wasp called Glyptapantele implants larvae into the caterpillar's body. However, in this case, the wasp larvae make the caterpillar their bodyguard. The larvae emerge from the caterpillar and stick to nearby plants, while the caterpillar stands guard for it on one side, attacking any object that tries to get close to them. Scientists who study this peculiar phenomenon have found that one or two larvae hide behind caterpillars. Wasp larvae may secrete some chemical to control the brain of the poor caterpillar, which is at best a walking dead, and the larvae have eaten only half of the caterpillar.
Conclusion: Modern science for zombie ants has shown that this fungus can only produce such a control behavior for ants, and can not have the same effect on humans, but it is a pity that scientists have not fully studied how this fungus acts on it, and some people even say that this fungus may end human survival.
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