Posted on 05/04/2012 7:14:33 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
As you can probably tell, at least one person on this blog's masthead likes ants.
So we've always been bummed that we haven't had the opportunity to tell you about zombie ants, but today we are glad to report there is a new development in the field. Luckily, it's a good-news report about a fungus that limits the fungus that turns ants into zombies.
In the current edition of the journal PLoS ONE, an international research team led by David Hughes of Penn State University reports that they've found the fungus that allows an ant colony to survive infestations by a "zombie-ant fungus, which invades an ant's brain and causes it to march to its death at a mass grave near the ant colony, where the fungus spores erupt out of the ant's head."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
When all the animals on the planet and fish in the ocean are extinct, the ants will still be here.
Is this thread a bait and switch? I came here thinking it would be about democrat voters the media. I had no idea this would be about insects.
Sounds just like the way liberalism works.
Someone needs to post a pic of a libtard with a bunch of face piercings.
It will be the ants vs. the cockroaches one step before that. Yeah, my money is on the ants as well.
Anyway, the entry on ants at Wikipedia contains a link to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index that is too good not to share (useful reference):
Those sting descriptions are great.
Ants are cool.
Roaches? Eh, not so cool.
Wasps? They rock and roll: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071206-roach-zombie.html
"..and I for one welcome our new insect overlords."
OK. All I could think of was the theme from the Pink Panther— Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant.................
It’s been shown that scorpions are very sturdy and will most likely be survivors long after man is gone as well.
They have found ants, roaches, rats and scorpions near nuclear test sites after the blasts and they are all able to take the heat and radiation of the bomb without much effect.
I’ve seen scorpions frozen in a block of ice and thawed out with a blowtorch and they just walk away. Also, a scorpion can go for 1 year without eating or drinking.
Insects are very strong and will outlast us for sure.
So that is how liberalism is spread from one useful idiot to the next useful idiot.
Here is the famous or infamous Zombie ant video from the BBC, narrated by the famous, or infamous, Sir David Attenborough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8
That’s an even more disturbing and disgusting propagation mechanism than I’d previously imagined.
Nature is unbelievably weird, and that’s only what we know and understand of it.
A variety of Cordyceps is reputed to have anticarcinogenic properties and an extract is marketed in tablet form for human and animal consumption.
If you’re wondering what sort of bug it took over, zombified, killed and ate, it’s caterpillar larvae found at high altitudes in China. The variety is Cordyceps Sinensis.
http://www.naturalnews.com/027869_cordyceps_cancer.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.