4 ms·
Zombie fly fungus lures healthy male flies to mate with female corpses (2022)
- bombcar 3y ago> "We see that the longer a female fly has been dead, the more alluring it becomes to males. This is because the number of fungal spores increases with time, which enhances the seductive fragrances," explains Henrik H. De Fine Licht He’s a Licht! It says so right there!
- bee_rider 3y agoThat name is a little on the nose.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoHow so? German/Dutch licht should correspond to modern English light, and this is indeed the case: > From Middle High German liecht, from Old High German lioht, from Proto-West Germanic *leuht, from Proto-Germanic *leuhtaz, from Proto-Indo-European *lewk-. Compare Dutch licht, English light. > light, bright (luminescent) > unobstructed, clear (The Dutch word, like the English word, also means "the opposite of heavy".) ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/licht#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/licht#Etymology ) Lich comes from Old English lic, a completely different kind of word form. [The Old English form suggested by light is liht, but in fact the OE word is leoht.] It is unrelated to light; instead, the more common descendant of lic in modern English is the word like.
- jvrossb 3y agoIt’s a fantasy reference I believe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich
- selimthegrim 3y agoIt has an Old English etymology of death and cemeteries, cf. lichgate
- thaumasiotes 3y agoLich does. Light doesn't.
- bee_rider 3y agoYes, it just turns into a kind of funny pun across languages. “De Fine Licht” in English looks like a funny spelling of “The Fine Lich,” like we’re describing a good looking undead wizard. False cognates lead to funny coincidences.
- NooneAtAll3 3y agoexplain?
- gpuhacker 3y agoI think they refer to Lich. From wikipedia: In fantasy fiction, a lich (/ˈlɪtʃ/;[1] from the Old English līċ, meaning "corpse") is a type of undead creature. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich
- wonderwonder 3y agoThe world at the scale of insects is truly brutal.
- isodev 3y agoBecause the world at our scale is a walk in the park.
- dymk 3y agounironically yes
- ErasticBrub 3y ago[flagged]
- isodev 3y ago> astonishingly high rate of such infection in ... community I wonder what kind of parasites and infections drive bigotry, ignorance and general unpleasantness.
- ErasticBrub 3y ago[dead]
- dang 3y ago"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag for how to flag a comment.)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dzink 3y agoLet me get this straight: you find a fungus that can take over creatures, turn them into zombies, kill then, then make more creatures copulate with a corpse to spread the fungus and you are recommending we put that stuff next to our homes and food facilities?
- raincole 3y agoA bit hard to see what the problem is here.
- yieldcrv 3y agoprobably will be a canned tea sold at whole foods soon seeing that cordyceps is distributed this way, I think it could be seen as a deliberate reproductive strategy
- quickthrower2 3y agoThe hormone, not the fungus
- delfinom 3y agoBetter yet, there are already highly effective fly traps that use chemical scents, why do we need zombie fungus traps.
- coprogram 3y agoAdding necrophilia to my zombie apocalypse bingo card as we speak
- teeray 3y agoWell, this will certainly be an interesting plot device in The Last of Us.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> As male flies copulate with dead females, the fungal spores are showered onto the males, who then suffer the same gruesome fate Does it lure females to copulate with the male corpses? Or males?
- selcuka 3y agoThe pheromones usually work in one direction. Otherwise female flies would also be attracted to other females. Also males seem to prefer infected females only [1]: > Housefly males are able to distinguish between male and female cadavers also when covered in infectious E. muscae conidia, and appear to readily initiate courtship and mating strikes towards infected female cadavers. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-022-01284-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-022-01284-x
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoThen how does the cycle close? Does it spread from males through females without any behaviour modification?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yieldcrv 3y agomy question too, so the males are just bad at spreading it? or maybe they mate often enough to spread it to more females
- drzoltar 3y agoThis reminds me of the Psirens episode from Red Dwarf: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psirens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psirens
- timc3 3y agoWould be great if we could somehow use this mechanism to kill ticks as well.
- AutumnCurtain 3y agoThere is a scifi novel from the 80s or 90s employing a ~somewhat~ similar plot device for a human, although the name now escapes me. Ring a bell with anyone?
- blux 3y agoThere are so many examples in the insect world of mind control its truly bizarre. The other day I encountered an example in David Goulson's recent book Silent Earth (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56470413-silent-earth https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56470413-silent-earth) that I did not know yet about; the emerald cockroach wasp (ampulex compressa). Rough transcription; for its reproduction, the wasp injects a cockroach with poison to paralyze it, then stings it in exactly that part of the brain responsible for its flight reflex to make it docile. After knibbling a bit on the cockroach's antennae and enjoying the hemolymph seeping out of the cockrach, the wasp takes the cockroach by its antennae and, even though it is much bigger than the wasp, directs it to its nest like a dog on a leech. In the nest of the cockroach the wasp lays an egg, which soon hatches a larvae that in turn proceeds to eat the cockroach alive while it is still dazed...And this is just the top of the ice berg.
- lostmsu 3y agoWhat are exact species? This sounds made up.
- mortallywounded 3y agoSounds like the perfect incel cure.