Illustration of an ant with an unusual fruiting body.
Illustration of an ant with an unusual fruiting body. A fungus that turns ants into zombies sometimes becomes the victim of other fungal species itself. In papers in the scientific journals Functional Ecology and Persoonia , Utrecht University microbiologist Charissa de Bekker and international colleagues describe two previously unknown fungal species that master the zombie fungus. When an ant of the species Camponotus floridanus becomes infected with the fungus Ophiocordyceps camponoti-floridani , its behavior changes. It leaves the nest, searches for a suitable patch of forest and crawls up, into the plants. Spurred on by the fungus, it climbs to a spot with just the right amount of sunlight. There, the ant bites into a plant and dies.
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