What should you know about HBO’s The Last of Us series? 2:07
(CNN Spanish) — In the first chapter of The Last of Us, the new HBO series based on the video game of the same name, a pandemic is ravaging the world after a parasitic virus of fungal origin infects humans and turns them into zombies. This genus of fungus that inspired the creators of the series exists in the real world and has a name: Cordyceps.
In fiction, Cordyceps enters the human body and takes over the brain, but in real life this fungus does not infect humans so far, but it attacks insects and also mentally manipulates them. What is Cordyceps and what does it actually do?
Cordyceps and Mental Manipulation: What Is It and What Really Causes It?
Cordyceps is a genus of fungi with hundreds of species that primarily affects insects, manipulating their minds and forcing them to infect other insects.
The most famous case in the world is that of “zombie ants”, that is, an ant infected by a parasitic fungus: it invades your body up to your brain to mentally control it and make it eat your Leaving the nest and climbing a nearby tree and infecting others.
I eat? The infected ant clamps its jaws around a tree leaf and dies within a few days from being digested by the fungus. Then it sends out a shower of spores to infect the next generation of ant prey.
Scientifically classified in the genus Ophiocordyceps, the more than two dozen species of fungi that affect ants are found around the world, primarily in Florida, Brazil, and Japan.
A white downy fungus grows on the parasitic fungus, which it attacks, turning the ants into “zombies”. (Photo credit: João Araujo)
The Ophiocordyceps genus isn’t the only one out there. dr João Araújo, Associate Curator of Mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, and his team discovered two genera of parasitic fungi previously unknown to science: Niveomyces coronatus and Torruiellomyces zombiee. However, due to their novelty, it is still unclear how they affect the zombie ant population.
In West Virginia, for example, in 2020 researchers discovered so-called “zombie cicadas,” a new population of cicadas brutally infected by Massospora, a psychedelic mushroom that contains chemicals similar to those found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, according to a new study published by PLOS pathogens.
In this case, the university researchers found that the infected cicadas kept moving unaware of their disease. This allows the parasitic fungus to manipulate them and drive them into hypersexual behavior that drives them to mate, only to eventually sexually transmit the fungus to healthy cicadas.
A cicada infected with Massospora.
After the fungus infects its host, it results in “a disturbing display of B-horror movie proportions,” West Virginia University says in a press release.
The fictional series raises something chilling, which is that due to global warming of the planet, Cordyceps is evolving to the point where it infects humans by taking over their own bodies, leading them to attack and spread the virus to those who are still were not infected.
The Last of Us airs on HBO Max, part of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company.
With information from Alaa Elassar, Kate Golembiewski and Sergio Gómez Martín