Carpenter ants of the Brazilian rain forest have it rough. When one of these insects gets infected by a certain fungus, it turns into a so-called “zombie ant” and is no longer in control of ...

In real life, Cordyceps is a genus of fungus that contains hundreds of species. The fungi are not bent on infecting humans, but they can really do some damage on insects. In carpenter ants ...

This fungus turns insects into zombies. The creators of the game and the show were inspired by zombie carpenter ants. WIRED spoke with Dr. Charissa de Bekker to talk about the real fungus that ...

The fungus takes over their minds and bodies ... and no longer has the same daily rhythms of the other ants. Most carpenter ants, for example, forage during the nighttime, but the infected ant ...

In reality, "zombie-ant fungus" or Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, is a parasitic fungus that infects and manipulates the behavior of carpenter ants, ultimately leading to their death. Dr. Jim ...

each of the four species specializes in controlling a different species of carpenter ant. The original zombie-ant fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, was first identified in 1865, and it seems to ...

"One species of fungus cannot infect even one of the closest relatives of its host. Just that species of ant." For cordyceps to go from just one particular type of ant, the carpenter ant ...

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, otherwise known as cordyceps or zombie-ant fungus, infects insects such as ants or spiders. Like other parasites, cordyceps drains its host completely of nutrients ...

To get around this, the fungus induces an infected ant to leave the nest ... In Ophiocordyceps-infected carpenter ants, for example, summiting always happens around solar noon. The biological ...

"The Last of Us" is tangentially based on the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus. It's pronounced "O-fio-cord-eh-septs Un-i-lat-er-al-is," but you can call it the zombie ant fungus. A spore ...