Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

There are some horror fiction mainstays that never fail to please. Chief among these is the all-purpose zombie. From the pathogen spewing post-apocalypse zombie, to the undead brought back by voodoo priests, Zombies have been gracing screens and pages for more than sixty years. Nature, as usual, is several steps ahead of us. To once again prove the phrase "Truth is stranger than fiction", I thought I'd share a few examples of actual zombies in the natural world.

Probably the best known example of this is the "Zombie Ant" from Brazil. Mentioned in articles in Scientific American and National Geographic, the Camponotini carpenter ant gained fame when scientists learned that it was often parasitized by a fungus, Ophiocordiceps. Parasitization is nothing new in nature, but parasites that can control the mind were an entirely different story. Once the fungus has sufficiently colonized the body of a worker ant, it influences the ant to climb up into the leaf canopy. When it reaches a sufficient height, it firmly plants its mandibles into the vein of a leaf, which is not a normal ant behavior. To make this all weirder, the infected ants generally all climb to 25 centimeters above the forest floor, and all perform their final bite at about noon. I call this the final bite, because afterward the ant dies and the fungus grows a spore producing spike out of the hosts head, which then rains spores down on the forest floor to infect another set of hosts.

How about an example closer to home? Let's try Toxoplasma gondii, the microbe that causes Toxoplasmosis. It is carried by cats, but it can't live its entire life cycle in a feline. Mice and rats are its first hosts, creatures that for good reason generally avoid cats. Those infected by the microbe, however, actually become attracted to the smell of cat urine, and will run quickly toward a cat to attract attention. Naturally, the cat pounces on this free lunch, eats it, and takes the microbe into itself. While a great deal of study has gone into this microbe because it can severely damage a developing human fetus, the most interesting research is just starting. Apparently, some researchers believe that it may actually be able to influence the human mind as well, at least as far as finding the scent of cat urine attractive rather than repellent. Since Toxoplasma gondii can only reproduce in the feline host, it would be in its best interest to have as many cats kept as possible, wouldn't it?

There are dozens of other examples, but I have space today for only one more. How about a case where humans actually think they're dead, but still walking around? Known as Cotard's syndrome, this is an extremely rare neuropsychiatric disfunction first described in 1880 by the neurologist Jules Cotard. People afflicted with this syndrome believe that they are actually, or figuratively, dead. Some believe that they are rotting bodies containing living minds, others that their blood or internal organs have been removed. In part due to its rarity, little is known about the root causes of the syndrome, but it is apparently tied to a malfunction in the brain that interferes with the person's ability to recognize themselves, or parts of themselves.

I do love a good zombie novel, nothing quite reaches the level of "wrongness" as bringing people back from the dead. I have to hand it to mother nature, though, she's been at this a good bit longer than we have.

Cheers,

Michelle