The notorious mushrooms from the HBO series and the games in the “The Last of Us” series are reality – for animals: Cordyceps and Gibellula.
The title image is a symbolic image.
Are there mushrooms that infest and control humans? First off: We are safe. Humans are not on the menu of the mushroom species presented here – but they attack animals and lead to truly creepy distortions. The Times reports on this, for example.
The arch-enemy of insects: Muscle-controlling fungi
Whom do the fungi attack? The fungus that serves as the template for the species spreading in The Last of Us is Cordyceps. In reality, this fungus infects ants or other insects and essentially uses them as a mobile platform. It dissolves them from the inside and is carried by the dying host to higher levels such as leaves on tree branches. In doing so, the fungus controls the ant directly through muscle manipulation, according to recent research.
Here the animal dies and the fungus slowly but steadily breaks out of the carcass. After some time, spores pour out from the tip of the fungus over the surrounding area. This is how the parasite reproduces and regulates populations in the insect kingdom.
You can find this and other interesting cases of multicellular fungi that act far more cleverly than we would assume of such simple organisms in the following YouTube video. Some also have their sights set on mice, as their final goal is cats.
Cordyceps do occur in Europe, although rarely. However, another genus of zombie fungus has now been rediscovered in Europe, specifically in Scotland.
What was discovered in Scotland? Gibellula is the subspecies of fungus that targets spiders. The principle is identical to that of Cordyceps. Anyone wanting to see some examples of overgrown spiders that could easily appear in The Last of Us can find them here on YouTube. However, Gibellula has been quite rare lately, as reported by Ecologist.org. However, scientists suspect that we will encounter its works more frequently in our forests in the future.
The rare occurrence is blamed on acid rain in the 20th century. Currently, the conditions are more favorable for fungi like Gibellula and Cordyceps due to the increasingly clean air in Europe. But don’t worry: There’s no risk of it jumping to humans as hosts for reproduction.
The Last of Us Part 2 undoubtedly tells a heartbreaking story, anything else would be an understatement. However, some players visibly struggled to separate the role from the actor. Some negative reactions boiled over so much that unusual measures became necessary: An actress now even needs more security because her character is so hated by fans.
