{"id":946895,"date":"2026-10-30T22:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T22:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946895\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T22:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T22:54:10","slug":"zombies-are-real-just-ask-the-parasites-taking-over-the-bodies-and-brains-of-insects-and-rodents-leading-them-to-their-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946895\/","title":{"rendered":"Zombies are real \u2013\u00a0just ask the parasites taking over the bodies and brains of insects and rodents, leading them to their doom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zombies have taken many forms in popular culture. In Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller<\/a>\u201d music video, corpses climb out of their graves and perform an impressively coordinated dance. In HBO\u2019s \u201cThe Last of Us<\/a>,\u201d a fungus infects humans, takes over their bodies and turns them into hosts that help spread the infection. Even Plankton has tried his hand at taking control of another organism in \u201cSpongeBob SquarePants<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

These examples are fictional, but they all play with the same unsettling idea: Can one organism take control of another, even after they\u2019re dead? In nature, the answer is not quite as dramatic, but some parasites and fungi come surprisingly close. <\/p>\n

I spend much of my time as a biomedical engineer and synthetic biologist<\/a> thinking about how biological systems sense signals, process information and change their behavior. That is part of what makes the idea of one organism taking control of another so fascinating to me.<\/p>\n

Some parasites and fungi can alter the behavior of a living host<\/a> in ways that benefit the parasite. They do not bring the dead back to life. Instead, they interfere with biological systems that control movement, motivation and decision-making. <\/p>\n

Zombie ants and fungi<\/p>\n

The best-known example of a parasite changing its host\u2019s behavior is the \u201czombie ant\u201d fungus<\/a>, Ophiocordyceps, which helped inspire \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The life cycle of the zombie ant fungus begins when fungal spores land on an ant. The spores stick to the ant\u2019s outer surface and eventually break through it, allowing the fungus to enter the body. Once inside, the fungus grows and spreads while the ant is still alive. The infection can develop over several weeks before the most dramatic changes in the ant\u2019s behavior<\/a> begin. <\/p>\n

Eventually, the infected ant leaves the colony and begins wandering and climbing vegetation. This behavior moves the ant away from its normal habitat and into a location that favors fungal reproduction and dispersal. Near the end of the infection, the ant bites tightly onto a leaf, twig or other plant surface and remains attached in what researchers call a death grip<\/a>. After the ant dies, the fungus consumes the remaining tissues and produces a stalk from the ant\u2019s body. This structure releases spores that can fall on other ants below and begin the cycle again. <\/p>\n

\"Dead<\/a><\/p>\n

These ants show the characteristic death grip and head stalk of an Ophiocordyceps infection.
\n Pontoppidan et al\/PLoS One<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\n

How does the fungus make the ant do this? You might imagine fungal cells invading the ant\u2019s brain and taking control. Surprisingly, researchers examining infected ants before death found extensive fungal growth throughout the body and around muscle fibers<\/a>, but not inside the brain. Fungal cells can form networks around the ant\u2019s muscles, suggesting that the ability to manipulate behavior may involve communication between the fungus and multiple host tissues rather than direct control of the brain.<\/p>\n

The death grip provides an especially striking example of how the fungus can manipulate its host\u2019s muscles. The jaw muscles of infected ants are heavily colonized by the fungus<\/a>, showing signs of extreme contraction. There are also signs that the fungus may be releasing molecules near these tissues. Yet motor neurons and connections between nerves and muscles can remain intact. Together, these findings suggest that the fungus may alter the machinery controlling muscle contraction rather than simply destroying it. <\/p>\n

Scientists still do not know exactly what causes ants to undergo the entire sequence of wandering, climbing and biting. While researchers have identified fungal genes<\/a> associated with proteins, toxins and other compounds that could affect chemical signaling in the host, many of these possible mechanisms have not yet been proved. <\/p>\n

That uncertainty is part of what makes the system so fascinating. The fungus does not appear to flip a single \u201czombie switch.\u201d Instead, it may change several biological systems at once until the ant behaves in a way that benefits the fungus. <\/p>\n

How to create a zombie<\/p>\n

Ophiocordyceps is not the only organism capable of changing a host\u2019s behavior. <\/p>\n

The emerald jewel wasp, Ampulex compressa<\/a>, uses a very different strategy: It injects venom into a cockroach\u2019s nervous system. The cockroach is not paralyzed, but it becomes much less likely to start moving on its own or to escape. The wasp can then lead it to a burrow and lay an egg on it. <\/p>\n

Researchers have shown that the venom reduces activity in parts of the nervous system involved in starting movement. In other words, the cockroach can still walk, but its drive to do so has been changed. <\/p>\n

\"Wasp<\/a><\/p>\n

This cockroach takes its marching orders from the emerald jewel wasp.
\n JMGM\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\n

Hairworms take behavioral manipulation<\/a> one step further by leading their hosts toward their own demise. Some species infect praying mantises or crickets and grow inside them while the insect is still alive. When the worm is ready to reproduce, the infected host becomes unusually attracted to light, which may draw it toward the shiny surface of water. The host enters the water, where the worm escapes from its body and begins the next stage of its life cycle. For the host that cannot swim, that behavior can be fatal.<\/p>\n

Researchers are still working out exactly how the parasite causes this change, but studies have found changes in proteins in the host\u2019s brain as the parasite manipulates it. In effect, the parasite appears to hijack the host\u2019s sensory and behavioral machinery to guide it somewhere it would not normally go. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately for crickets, hairworms also find them good hosts.<\/p>\n

Behavioral manipulation also occurs in mammals. Toxoplasma gondii<\/a> can infect many warm-blooded animals, but it reproduces in cats. <\/p>\n

While rodents normally avoid cat odors, those infected with the parasite can lose some of that natural aversion and even become attracted to cat odors<\/a>. This change could increase the chance that an infected rodent is eaten by a cat, allowing the parasite to complete its life cycle.<\/p>\n

More than mind control<\/p>\n

These examples show why \u201cmind control\u201d is an imperfect description of how parasites manipulate their hosts. Parasites do not need to control every action that their host makes. They may only need to change one key behavior: whether to climb, whether to walk away, whether to enter water or whether to avoid a predator. <\/p>\n

\"Microscopy<\/a><\/p>\n

Toxoplasma gondii cycle between rodents, cats and humans.
\n AJ Cann\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\n

There is no single \u201czombie switch.\u201d Behavior emerges from communication between the nervous system, muscles and other tissues throughout the body. Different parasites have evolved different ways to interfere with those systems.<\/p>\n

So biology cannot create the dancing dead of \u201cThriller\u201d or the infected humans of \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d But if a zombie is a living organism whose normal behavior has been redirected by another organism, nature has already created plenty of them. <\/p>\n

Studying these real-life zombies may help scientists understand not only how parasites manipulate their hosts, but also how normal behavior is generated and controlled in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zombies have taken many forms in popular culture. In Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller\u201d music video, corpses climb out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,128],"class_list":["post-946895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}