Hello buddies….👋🏻. Happy to see you in my next blog🤩. In this blog we know about the Zombie - Ant Fungus.

According to a new study, researchers have discovered that the fungus that attacks ants is also infested with fungal parasites, which may be preventing ant zombification.

Alfred Russel Wallace, a British scientist, discovered an insect-pathogenic fungus in 1859; it is now mostly found in tropical forest habitats. 

There are 600 different types of cordyceps in existence today, mostly in Southeast Asia.

There are presently over 320 species in the genus Ophiocordyceps, which contains all "zombie-ant fungi" species. About 35 of them, mostly carpenter ant species, have the ability to control ant behavior.

The cordyceps or zombie-ant fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, affects insects like ants and spiders. 

Infection, death grip, stalk development, and dissemination are the roughly four stages of Ohiocordyceps unilateralis' life cycle. The fungus O. unilateralis targets Camponotus leonardi host ants that are feeding on the forest floor.

On formicine hosts, the zombie-ant fungus may be found in warm-temperate forest systems in addition to pantropical forests. It is far more prevalent in tropical woods nevertheless, just like the ants.

Like other parasites, cordyceps totally depletes its victim of nutrition before injecting its body with spores that will enable the fungus to grow.

The sticky spore on the forest floor is the first stage of the zombie-ant fungus' life cycle. 

The spore develops infectious hyphae (threadlike strands) that penetrate the exoskeleton of an approaching carpenter ant if it sticks to the body of the ant.

The fungus there consumes the leaf as the sick ant clamps its jaws around it and perishes in a number of days. 

The fungus bursts through the host's body and releases a shower of spores to infect the subsequent generation of ant victims.

A zombie ant's bite could sting, but since the fungus cannot infect people, no further damage would result from it. Most likely, zombie ants are not particularly interested in biting humans.

Due to the high interior temperatures of the human body, humans are unable to transport the fungus or become infected by it in any manner.

Additionally, compared to ants and other insects, humans have far more sophisticated anatomy, which shields them against cordyceps infection.

Due to its possible health advantages, it is toxic and frequently used in traditional medicine and as a food supplement. However, taking a lot of cordyceps might have negative consequences including allergies and headaches.

Consider the fact that there was still no treatment or vaccination to ward off the deadly cordyceps fungus even 20 years after the catastrophic fungal plague broke out.

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