Some of the things that go on in the insect world are scarier than Hollywood horror flicks…a killer fungus infects the ant and causes it to do things that will destroy its own colony.
The finding suggests that the killer fungus has learned to adapt to its environment, particularly to the cooler temperatures and seasonal shift of temperate areas. By doing so, the fungus modified its life cycle to have enough time to produce spores and switched to commanding its “Zombie ant” host to bite twigs instead of leaves. “Some of the ants do not simply bite the twigs but wrap their back legs around the twig and hold on,” said Loreto. “They probably do this because biting twigs in not enough to hold them on,” she points out. In fact, the entomologist has discovered that the “Zombie ant fungus” actually keeps the ant secured to the twig with the help of its hyphae, or the filaments that make up its mycelium.
What is remarkable here is that we have shown that the complex manipulation of an animal by microbe has responded to selection pressure the climate imposes on animals and plants. That was a cool finding that really excited us.
