Before Humans, a Fungus Was Making Zombies: A 99-Million-Year-Old Fly Found Trapped in Amber Proves It | World News
99 million years ago, when the dinosaurs ruled the world. In an ancient tree resin, there was a deadly mushroom growing from a small fly head, a clear sign of transformed into a “zombie .. The mushroom had taken control of the fly body before killing. Now, scientists have discovered this scene, showing that the idea of zombie -like infection is not only for films, in fact it was in nature a long time ago.
In Amber, 100 million -year -old Amber from Myanmar, scientists discovered a direct scene from a horror film: both of them exploded from the heads of a fly and ants, mushrooms. The twisted growths are the fruitful bodies of an old mushroom called ophiocordyceps, which still seize the minds of ants today and transform them into “zombies” before killing them.
Scientists also found another ancient mushroom named PaleoofioFordyCeps, who did not kill their goals, in fact seizing the control of their bodies after death. This mushroom made dead insects to move and twitch and helped spread their sports to new places. Strange things that grow up from the heads of ants and flies? These are the part of the mushrooms that give fruit bodies, to breed.
A real -life zombie story from the Dinosaur Age
Researcher Yuhui Zhuang and his team discovered two new species of this mushroom: Paleophiocordyceps Gerontoformica and PaleophiocordyCeps Ironomia. This shows that “zombie -like” behavior in insects has nothing new for millions of years.
Poor ants are usually victims
Today, however, this frightening mushroom only pursues ants, takes over their brains and climbs to high places before killing them, and allows their sports to spread widely. But in this rare discovery, it was not an infected ant, it was a fly. Finding such a protected fly in the tree resin is extremely unusual, so scientists are particularly excited. It offers a rare and fascinating perspective on how this mind control mushroom behaved millions of years ago.
These insects were probably died before trapped in the sticky tree resin, which helped maintain both their bodies and terrible mushroom growth even after about 100 million years.
This incredible discovery surprised scientists, proved that strange and frightening activities were often part of Nature’s story for millions of years, often we have seen in horror films. The idea of a fungus that transforms victims into foolish puppets is not only science fiction, but a real and old nightmare from the world’s past.
