The Zombie Ant Fungus Is More Terrifying Than The Last of Us

The Last of Us didn't invent this. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis hijacks a carpenter ant, forces it to climb to a precise height on the underside of a leaf, locks its jaw onto the central vein at solar noon, and grows out of its head. It's been doing this for 48 million years.

And the show got one thing wrong: the fungus never controls the brain. Researchers showed it wraps around the ant's mandibular muscle fibers directly. The brain stays intact. The ant is awake the whole time.

When the jaw locks, the muscle fibers hypercontract so hard they tear themselves apart. The ant couldn't let go if it tried.

Sources: Fredericksen et al., PNAS, 2017; Mangold et al., Journal of Experimental Biology, 2017.

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