The popular video game and television franchise “The Last of Us” features a post-apocalyptic world where humans are infected by Cordyceps – a fungus that infects the brain and body, turning its hosts into mindless zombies. The fungus is based on real-world Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps that infect insects, and new research suggests these parasites are much older than what scientists previously thought.
A plot millions of years in the making
Scientists have recently discovered two specimens, a fly and an ant preserved in amber, that are infected with ancient strains of Ophiocordyceps. These insects are thought to be around 99 million years old, making them the oldest known examples of this fungal-parasitic infection.
Yuhui Zhuang is a doctoral student at Yunnan University and the co-author of the study on these fossils that was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on June 11.
“Amber gives us this opportunity to visualize the ancient ecological relationships preserved in fossils,” Zhuang told CNN.
The fossils are especially of note, particularly the fly, because the amber preserved the fungal bloom bursting out of the insects. Conrad Labandeira is a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History. He stated that it’s rare to find fungi preserved in this way as their bodies are made of soft tissues, Science News reported.
Zhuang and his team named the ant’s fungal strain Paleoophiocordyceps gerontoformicae, and the fly’s Paleoophiocordyceps ironomyiae.
How the fungus works
Researchers assume these ancient fungi probably behaved similarly to their modern-day counterparts.
Similar to how the virus spreads in “The Last of Us,” real-life Cordyceps use spores to infect new hosts. Sometimes referred to as the “zombie-ant fungus,” Labandeira shared that once a spore lands on an ant-host, it finds a weak spot to enter the body and infect the brain, CNN reported. It then takes control of the ant in order to spread to more hosts.
The fungus will eventually kill its host and sprout a mushroom from the body in order to spread spores.
The source of these fossils
Zhuang found these amber fossils in the basement of his lab at Yunnan University, Science News reported. They are believed to have originated from Myanmar’s amber markets.
Science detailed that the country’s amber markets are at the center of a political conflict, creating ethical concerns on how research specimens are acquired.
Zhuang shared he believes these fossils were acquired before the conflict in Myanmar started, WESH 2 News reported.
