"Problem: you’re a fungus that can only flourish at a certain temperature, humidity, location and distance from the ground but can’t do the legwork to find that perfect spot yourself. Solution: hijack an ant’s body to do the work for you—and then inhabit it."
Something like this is definitely a new and huge discovery. But even though this scientific discovery does not affect me, it is a new fact that I have just learned. Every day, every hour, we learn something knew; but can something like this affect us?
Everyone knows that fungi can't move from one place to another, but did anyone know that they can climb into an ants' body and control them? Well, now scientists have figured out that Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus can infect Camponotus leonardi ants that live in tropical rainforest trees. Once the ant is infected, the spore-possessed ant will climb down from its normal habitat and bite down, with what the authors call a "death grip" on a leaf and then die.
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