Page 32 - How It Works - Book Of Amazing Answers To Curious Questions, Volume 05-15

Do zombie

animals exist?

The human version may be
fictional, but in the animal kingdom,

zombies have no mercy…

hey’re not quite the classic brain-eating,
gormless slow-shufflers of horror movies,

Tbut for some species, the zombie threat is
very real. The culprit? Parasites: small
organisms with complex life cycles that set up
camp inside their animal hosts. These
gruesome body-snatchers are able to control
the animals’ minds, using them as living-dead
puppets and steering them to positions of
optimal benefi t.
One classic case is the zombie ant. The
parasite is a mind-controlling fungus
(Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufi pedis) that
manipulates carpenter worker ants into
straying far enough from the colony that their
social immunity is impaired. The fungus makes
the ant bite down underneath a leaf, where it is
anchored until it dies, then the ant’s corpse is
used by the fungus to grow. The fungus also
releases spores that rain down and infect more
ants, and so the nightmare continues.
One insect group responsible for zombifying
its victims and turning them into mindless
drones are wasps. The jewel wasp (Ampulex
compressa) injects venom directly into the
brains of cockroaches, targeting two specifi c
locations that render the roach’s free will
useless. The wasp leads the cockroach to a
burrow and lays an egg on the roach’s abdomen.
The zombie roach only dies once the egg has
hatched and the larva devours it piece by piece.
Another wasp species, the green-eyed wasp
(Dinocampus coccinellae), makes light work of
harnessing the power of the ladybird. The wasp
lays her eggs inside the bug, and new evidence
suggests that a virus also attacks the ladybird’s
brain, paralysing and enslaving it as a zombie
babysitter. The larva emerges and weaves a
cocoon between the ladybird’s legs so the
paralysed bug acts as a bodyguard until the
larva is ready to leave. Amazingly, a quarter of
ladybirds recover from their zombifi cation!

32 How It Works