Will Bugmen eat fungus infected insects?
Link 1
Blurb:
Entomophthora muscae, also called the “zombie fly fungus,” is a parasitic fungus that survives by infecting houseflies, and it’s right here in Maine attacking flies in houses and gardens around the state.
As parasites go, the zombie fungus is particularly horrifying, with a life cycle that seems more at home in a Stephen King novella than a scientific research article. A
recent study out of Denmark shows the fungus actually takes control of a female fly’s behavior while consuming it from the inside out. It then uses the corpse to attract and infect male houseflies.
According to the study, once the fungus infects a female fly with its spores, it spreads and feeds on her body from the inside. After about six days of feasting on the living fly, the fungus takes over its behavior and forces it to climb to the highest available location where the female finally dies, leaving only a hollowed-out corpse.
Link 2
Blurb:
In areas of the country with severe tawny crazy ant infestations, “there’s no insect noise and there’s no bird noise,” says Edward LeBrun, an ecologist at the University of Texas, tells Erik Strokstad for
Science. LeBrun, an author of the new paper published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explains that the ants “have really profound ecological impacts.”
So when LeBrun and colleagues found a type of fungus that seems to only target tawny crazy ants, they were immediately intrigued. The fungus,
Myrmecomorba nylanderiae, works by eating the ants from the inside out. Once a fungal spore is swallowed by an ant, the pathogen hijacks an insect’s fat cells and makes them shed more spores, which infect others.
Before doing their latest study, the research team observed and sampled over a dozen infected and uninfected crazy ant colonies. They found all infected colonies were declining, and more than half of them disappeared completely within four to seven years of being infected with the pathogen, according to
Live Science’s Mindy Weisberger.
Link 3
Blurb:
Pity the poor unsuspecting carpenter ant who unwittingly becomes infected with spores scattered by a parasitic fungus in the
Cordyceps genus. The spores attach to the ant and germinate, spreading through the host's body via long tendrils called mycelia.
Cordyceps essentially turns its host into a zombie slave, compelling the ant to climb to the top of the nearest plant and clamp its tiny jaws in a death grip around a leaf or twig.
The fungus then slowly devours the ant, sprouting through its head in one final indignity. Then the bulbous growths on the ends of the mycelia burst, releasing even more spores into the air, to infect even more unsuspecting ants. It's not a great way to go: the entire process can take four to 14 days.
There are more than
400 different species of
Cordyceps fungi, each targeting a particular species of insect, whether it be ants, dragonflies, cockroaches, aphids, or beetles. The zombification aspect has made the fungus a favorite of nature documentaries. It has also worked its way into popular culture, such as the zombie-apocalypse video game,
The Last of Us (2013), in which a parasitic fungus mutates so that it also infects humans. But scientists are keen to study
Cordyceps to learn more about the origins and intricate mechanisms behind these kinds of pathogen-based diseases.