Long before humans walked the Earth, while dinosaurs were still roaming the land, a parasitic fungus hijacked the mind of a ...

When Entomophaga grylli infects locusts or grasshoppers, they climb to the tops of plants before their death. The zombie-ant ...

A piece of 99 million-year-old amber has revealed a shocking sight. It’s a fly with a zombie fungus growing from its head.

A parasitic fungus transforms ants into “zombies.” Scientists say that the ant-attacking fungus is infected with fungal parasites of its own, which could be helping to keep ant zombification ...

The cordyceps fungus, or more specifically, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, is often referred to as the “zombie-ant fungus.”It is predominantly found in tropical forest ecosystem, such as the Amazon ...

Paleontologists studying insects trapped in amber from 99 million years ago have made a remarkable discovery: an ant and a ...

Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers report that fossilized entomopathogenic fungi from mid-Cretaceous amber reveal some ...

In the video game The Last of Us and its spin-off HBO series, humans fight to survive against cordyceps, a parasitic fungus ...

Using machine learning to predict protein-protein interactions between a zombie ant fungus and its carpenter ant host. Sci Rep. 2023;13(1):13821. de Bekker C, et al. Species-specific ant brain ...

Now, scientists have uncovered two new ancient species from the dinosaur era, beautifully preserved in amber. These fungi ...

Finally, the fungus causes the ant to climb up a plant and lock onto a leaf or a stem with its jaws – a behavior called summiting. The fungus changes into a new phase and consumes the ant’s organs, ...

Ophiocordyceps are named because they infect the brain of their hosts to then manipulate the ant’s behaviour. Zombie-ant fungi have gained widespread recognition as the inspiration behind the ...