...and it's starting with ants.
[quote=Article]
The deepest reaches of the Brazilian jungle harbour some of the most dangerous life on Earth, but the ants in the rainforest face an enemy more sinister than most.
On a recent field trip to the region, scientists discovered four new species of fungus that infect ants, take over their bodies and eventually kill them in a place that is just right for the organism to grow inside them.
The fungus can destroy entire colonies and leave behind gruseome ant graveyards, where twisted, dark corpses rest with their mandibles locked around leaf veins, a final act that secures the creature's host in position before it releases spores to infect others.
David Hughes at Penn State University and Harry Evans at CABI in Surrey identified the four species of Ophiocordyceps fungus while working in the Atlantic rainforest in Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil.
"It's a fabulously complex organism," Hughes told the Guardian. "There is a beauty to the whole thing, whether it is the chemicals at work that take over the ant, or the spores which try one strategy and then another to find a host on the forest floor."
Records of "zombie-ant fungus" were made in 1859 by Alfred Russel Wallace, the great naturalist and contemporary of Darwin, who found two specimens in Sulawesi in Indonesia. Wallace also collected specimens in the Amazon to bring back to London, but he lost all of his material when his ship, Helen, caught fire and sank on the way home.
The most important modern specimen of an ant gripped by the fungus was stored at a museum in Paris, but was apparently lost after being loaned to a Japanese researcher in 1941.
Writing in the journal Plos One, the researchers describe the four species of fungus, each of which targets a different variety of Carpenter ant.
The lifecycle of the organism is extraordinary. Ants become infected with the fungus when spores land on them from above, or when they encounter them on the forest floor. Once attached, the spores use enzymes to get inside the ant's body where the fungus begins to grow. Within a week or so, chemicals released by the fungus cause the ant to wander off and bite on to leaf veins and other vegetation, moments before dying. Many ants are found in places where the conditions are perfect for fungal growth.
Once the ant has died, the fungus slowly sprouts from its head and grows a pod of spores which are fired onto the forest floor at night, to infect other ants.
The latest study reveals that some of the fungi produce spores that have a back-up plan if they fail to infect an ant within a day of being released. Spores that rest on the ground slowly grow a secondary spore, that juts upright from the forest floor, where it can latch on to ants as they pass.
The scientists have found six more species of the fungus in Cairns, Australia, home to some of the oldest rainforests on Earth.
[/quote]
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/02/fungi-zombie-ants-amazon]***Source***[/url]
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Undescriptive / Misleading thread title" - Big Dumb American))[/highlight]
I'm pretty sure we've known about this for a while.
Oh god.
Ant Yonkers.
[QUOTE=a-cookie;31063063]Oh god.
Ant Yonkers.[/QUOTE]
Even worse. Ant Poland. And you thought pesticides were bad as it is.
We're fucked.
[QUOTE=SoaringScout;31063054]I'm pretty sure we've known about this for a while.[/QUOTE]
We have, here's a video.
[video=youtube;XuKjBIBBAL8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8[/video]
nature is metal as fuck
Here we go again with the zombies...:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=butters757;31063142]We have, here's a video.
[video=youtube;XuKjBIBBAL8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8[/video][/QUOTE]
Eneghhhhh I hate ants
Bulbmin!
read title, hopes rising..
thread is about ants
fuck you OP.. crushing my dreams
Cordyceps Fungi are one of the reasons why I love nature and it's ingenuity.
[QUOTE=a-cookie;31063063]Oh god.
Ant Yonkers.[/QUOTE]
Its not going to happen again :9 I hope..
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;31064639]read title, hopes rising..
thread is about ants
fuck you OP.. crushing my dreams[/QUOTE]
It's not like you'd last longer than a few hours anyway.
[QUOTE=Seiteki;31064868]It's not like you'd last longer than a few hours anyway.[/QUOTE]
it's not about if you win or lose
it's the taking part
[quote=Article]lost all of his material when his ship, Helen, caught fire and sank on the way home[/quote] Imagine if those fungus infected the crew causing it to happen.
What's with people wanting a zombie apocalypse these days?
I grow tired of this zombie shit.
[QUOTE=Seiteki;31064868]It's not like you'd last longer than a few hours anyway.[/QUOTE]
I will have it easy. The bungalow I reside in has a retractable staircase. All I merely do is hide upstairs in the attic and pull up the stairs.
Till I run out of a supplies.
Oh it's this ant thing again, read it months ago.
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;31064932]it's not about if you win or lose
it's the taking part[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, having to hide from a horde of flesh-eating beings that were once your closest friends and family. FUN FUN FUN, RIGHT?!
[QUOTE=eatdembeanz;31066383]Oh yeah, having to hide from a horde of flesh-eating beings that were once your closest friends and family. FUN FUN FUN, RIGHT?![/QUOTE]
fun for all the family, atleast the ones who are alive
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;31066404]fun for all the family, atleast the ones who are alive[/QUOTE]
Are you 14?
r8 l8 m8
Theres also parasites that make rats run up to cats to get eaten, since the parasites can only reproduce in cat ass.
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;31064639]read title, hopes rising..
thread is about ants
fuck you OP.. crushing my dreams[/QUOTE]
You'd be busy watching MLP as your zombie family kills you off.
Even if this fungus infected humans it would be something passive, like moaning zombie people going on the roof and die there
[QUOTE=Angua;31066338]Oh it's this ant thing again, read it months ago.[/QUOTE]
who hasn't read it :v:
Help us destroy the rainforest before it's too late
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR37Z5DzsTg&t=0m53s[/url]
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;31064639]read title, hopes rising..
thread is about ants
fuck you OP.. crushing my dreams[/QUOTE]
:allears:
Yeah the fungus basically keeps ants from not spreading too much.
Regulating the population of ant species or some shit.
Guys what if wasps got more deadly and fucking terrifying?
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