FASCINATING FACTS

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Madagascar blue stick insect (Achrioptera fallax)

Astaple in the horror culture is the zombie trope, where usually a virus will infect living things and turn them into mindless, cannibalistic zombies. Fortunately, humanity has not been threatened in this way by an incurable virus, but a certain kind of fungus lurks in the invertebrate world with startlingly similar effects.

Cordyceps is a genus of fungus comprised of around 600 species. Most of them are known to be endo-parasites of invertebrates and arthropods. You can find Cordyceps but most often in humid, tropical, equatorial forests.

When the parasitic species attack an invertebrate host, the mycelium of the fungus begins to replace the host organism’s tissue. As it spreads, it slowly assumes control of the host by overriding the muscles and limbs. Each species of cordyceps seems to specialise in a particular host.

for example, is known to target ants, sometimes successfully infecting entire colonies.

Near the end of the process, the fungus compels the host to seek a suitable position to disperse its spores, such as a high point on a branch. Once there, an ant for example will anchor itself in place with its mandibles while an ascocarp (sporebearding stalk) emerges from the hosts body, releasing cordyceps spores into the air, beginning the cycle again.

This is a horrifying demise by anyone’s standards. Fortunately, cordyceps are only known to infect insects (thus they are entomopathogenic), with a few infecting other fungi species. In fact, cordyceps have gained popularity as a potential health supplement.

While not definitively proven with enough scientific literature yet, cordyceps shows promise as a beneficial health supplement. Its potential includes: increased athletic performance, anti-inflammatory and anti-aging effects, anti-tumour assistance, protection from heart disease and help managing diabetes, to name a few. It has been used for these proposed benefits in traditional medicine practises dating as far back as the 15th century, which can at least lend evidence that there is no known toxicity when we use it this way.

We can at least be grateful we were born humans and not insects, for the fact that we don’t have to be worried about being turned into zombies

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