Zombie Ants are Real!

[renau1g]

Zombie ants controlled by fungus: study - Technology & Science - CBC News

Just saw this today and could only think it's the beginning of the end. Time to dust off the ol' Zombie Survival Guide and start stocking up on canned goods and bottled water....

 

[jonesy]

It's much worse than you think:

Zombie Animals and the Parasites that Control Them | Unusual Organisms | DISCOVER Magazine

We are on that list.

"Humans might not be exempt from the mind control of parasites, either. Half of us, scientists say, carry the parasitic protozoa Toxoplasma gondii. And once we have toxoplasma in our bodies, we carry it for life."

 

[Mark CMG]

I cannot seem to not post a denial in this thread no matter how hard I will my hands to stop typing and my skull feels like it is expanding even as the pain is almost unbearab--

 

[Stumblewyk]

Then I guess I started my Zombie Survival Simula...err...I mean Zombie Apocalypse d20 game not a moment too soon.

Quickly! To the dice bag!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I knew about most of those except the wasp/caterpillar and the barnacle/crab ones. There are non-parasitic mind controllers out there too. I remember seeing a doc on a kind of caterpillar that secretes a chemical that makes ants like it, so they protect it and bring it into their nest...where it starts eating larvae.

And who knows what else is out there? And what kind of storylines this could get to?

They did one like this in X-files, where the mind controller was a silicon-based life form from a volcanic vent- cool episode.