The fungus infects the fruit fly and forces it to adopt strange behaviour, such as attaching itself to a vertical surface before death Carolyn Elya
Thereās no need to travel to exotic rainforests to find mind-warping parasites. They are probably lurking in your own backyard.
That, at least, is where Carolyn Elya found a āzombie fungusā that takes control of fruit flies. She took it back to her lab, where she managed to get it growing in lab fruit flies. āIt was incredibly lucky,ā she says.
So-called parasitic fungi are well-known in the insect world. They usually infect their…
