Cordyceps

Image by myriorama via Flickr

*dehn*

Across the world...

*dehn-dehn*

A horror arises...

*dehn-dehn-dehn*

Ready to feast...

*dehn*

To multiply...

*dehn*

To KILL...

Are you prepared for the...

Image by myriorama via Flickr

*boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom tish*

ATTACK OF THE KILLER ZOMBIFYING MUSHROOMS!!?!

*deeeeeeeehhn-deeeeeeehhhn-deeehhn*

Cordyceps, alias Ophiocordyceps. A mindless, heartless fungus dedicated solely to the survival of itself and her spawn.

Tiny, unassuming specks travel in the wind. Without thought, without intention, without virtue.

They land wherever they might. Millions will die a cold, lonely, senseless death. A few... a chosen few will live.

An insect or arachnid, quietly goes about its business. Pollinating the flowers that bring such beauty to our world, controlling the pests that would wreak such destruction or gathering the food that feeds the next generation and serves queen and colony.

Image by myriorama via Flickr

The fungus doesn't care. The fungus doesn't feel. The fungus merely latches on to its prey. Soon, it enters the internal cavity of its host. Mycelia spread like roots through the victim's body, turning innards into sugars... food for further growth.

It's the ants I pray for.

As the fungus reaches the ant's brain, the infiltrator slowly claims it for her own. An ant, once foraging with her sisters, begins to act erratically. Innocuous at first, her colony must eventually face the awful truth:

She is no longer one of our own.

Image by newmy51 via Flickr

Cast out from her family, the afflicted continues her descent into madness as the fungus consumes her, infects her mind and gains control.

Her - the ant's - final act, if indeed it can any longer be called her own, is to climb up a plant stem and bite down on it. This will happen at noon and she may be joined by numerous kin, all laid low by the same plague.

Image by cordyceps via Flickr

Here she will stay, the fungus continuing to consume her from the inside but leaving be the muscles of her mandibles. Her mandibles, once her strength, her power are now her undoing. For this place, above the forest floor and below the humidity of the canopy, is where the fungus wishes to be.

Come sunset, the fungus will finally reveal itself. A stalk erupts from the ant's head and grows through the cool of night, using the energy gained from her victim's once vital form.

Image by myriorama via Flickr

Weeks pass before the true horror is unveiled. The stalk grows, expands and lengthens. Shape and colour are corrupted like the work of a deranged artist as what is known as the fruiting body, ripens.

It is an evil fruit indeed, the seeds of which are the spores, the tiny, unassuming specks, cast off into the wind - ready to strike again.

There are hundreds of species of Cordyceps across the world, probably many more as yet undiscovered or blanketed beneath a single name.

One thing is for sure.

They're here.

And they're hungry.

Image by nebarnix via Flickr