Zombies in the Ozarks
By Fred Paillet, OS Education Chair You read that right – there are a few zombies on the loose in the Ozarks. By zombies we mean functionally dead creatures with their nervous systems taken over by alien life forms and programmed to do the bidding of those new masters. In high school biology you may remember hearing about one of nature’s ecological cruelties in the form of wasps that parasitize caterpillars. The female wasps do this by stinging the caterpillar to paralyze the bug, and then depositing eggs injected into the still living body. The wasp larvae then mature by eating the living flesh of their helpless victim. The process of ecological success through such a parasitic process has reached its ultimate form in the zombie ant fungus of the genus Ophiocordyceps. This fungus disseminates spores that infect ants but not to simply digest them. The fungus first takes over the ant’s nervous system to program the ant zombie to become the ideal fruiting body for the dissemination of spores. The ant is programmed to climb to the highest point it can manage so that the spores eventually produced can be exposed to the wind to ensure that they [...]