Zombie fungus infects fruit flies and turns them into slaves

The fungus infects the fruit fly and forces it to adopt strange behaviour, attaching itself to a vertical surface before death

The fungus infects the fruit fly and forces it to adopt strange behaviour, such as attaching itself to a vertical surface before death

Carolyn Elya

There’s no need to travel to exotic rainforests to find mind-warping parasites. They are probably lurking in your own backyard.

That, at least, is where Carolyn Elya found a “zombie fungus” that takes control of fruit flies. She took it back to her lab, where she managed to get it growing in lab fruit flies. “It was incredibly lucky,” she says.

So-called parasitic fungi are well-known in the insect world. They usually infect their host, before controlling its behaviour to give it the best chance of spreading to more victims.

Seeing a similar fungus attacking fruit flies should help us learn more about how they operate. Because so much is known about fruit flies, as they are one of the standard animal “models” studied