Climate change forced zombie ant fungi to adapt

Climate change forced zombie ant fungi to adapt

6 years ago
Anonymous $CLwNLde341

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-climate-zombie-ant-fungi.html

Zombie ants are actually various species of carpenter ants that are infected with a parasitic fungus. About half the species of carpenter ants can be infected and each species has its own fungus. The zombie ant phenomena currently occurs around the globe on all continents except Europe. However, a fossil zombie ant was found in Germany, so they did once exist in Europe as well.

"They are probably not in Europe because the forests there are so managed," said Hughes. "They likely went locally extinct there."