Favorite Freaky Species

[popeyespappy]

That's wild! Definitely going on my faves list.

Sir David failed to get into one of the interesting aspects of the fungi. They create mind controlled zombies.

The fungus's spores enter the body of the insect likely through the cuticle by enzymatic activity, where they begin to consume the non-vital soft tissues. Yeast stages of the fungus spread in the ant's body and presumably produce compounds that affect the ant's brain and change its behaviour by unknown mechanisms, causing the insect to climb up the stem of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the plant. Infected ants bite the leaf veins with abnormal force, leaving telltale dumbbell-shaped marks. A search through plant fossil databases revealed similar marks on a fossil leaf from the Messel pit which is 48 million years old.[5][6]
The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow as its mycelia invade more soft tissues and structurally fortify the ant's exoskeleton.[2] More mycelia then sprout out of the ant, and securely anchor it to the plant substrate while secreting antimicrobials to ward off competition.[2] When the fungus is ready to reproduce, its fruiting bodies grow from the ant's head and rupture, releasing the spores. This process takes 4 to 10 days.[2]
The changes in the behavior of the infected ants are very specific, giving rise to the term zombie ants, and tuned for the benefit of the fungus. The ants generally clamp to a leaf's vein about 25 cm above the ground, on the northern side of the plant, in an environment with 94-95% humidity and temperatures between 20 and 30 °C. According to David Hughes, "You can find whole graveyards with 20 or 30 ants in a square metre. Each time, they are on leaves that are a particular height off the ground and they have bitten into the main vein [of a leaf] before dying".[7] When the dead ants are repositioned in various other situations, further vegetative growth and sporulation either fails to occur or results in undersized and abnormal reproductive structures.[8]

BTW, Our species is currently investigating ways to use this fungus.

The Ophiocordyceps fungus contains various known and untapped bioactive metabolites, and is being investigated as a new source of natural drugs with immunomodulatory, antitumor, hypoglycemic and hypocholesterolemic functions.[10]

Zombie shroms anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyc...ilateralis

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The platypus - irrefutable evidence for an intelligent designer.

By "intelligent", I mean "completely whacked on cocaine and 'ludes".

Fuck. Ludes? I just dated myself. LOL