Discover the new podcast of The Conversation France: “L’échappée Sciences”. Twice a month, an original subject covered by an interview with a scientist and a column by one of our journalists.
A world ravaged by a pandemic, in which the survivors hide in quarantine zones in order to escape the rest of humanity, transformed into very aggressive undead… Whether you are fascinated by zombie films or they Indifferent to you, it’s a safe bet that you’ve heard of “The Last of Us”, the latest hit television series from the American channel HBO.
A touch of originality in a very classic scenario: the disaster that led to the downfall of our species was not caused by a fatally contagious virus, but by a parasitic fungus. A fungus that does exist. With one nuance (of size): in reality, the Cordyceps – that’s its name – does not attack humans.
Its prey are ants, which it transforms into veritable puppets. Once infected, the fungus feeds on their bodies and then, when the time comes to produce its spores, it takes control of them. THE Cordyceps then obliges “his” ant to climb to the top of a grass and to anchor himself there with all the strength of his mandibles, until death ensues. It thus becomes a perfect diffuser, ensuring that a rain of fungal spores can fall on its congeners remaining on the ground, below… Which will also end up at the orders of the fungus.
But the Cordyceps is not the only one to “hack” other living beings to put them at his service. The Gordian worm, for example, is capable of transforming the happiest of crickets into a suicidal insect, which will throw itself without hesitation into the first pond that comes along, he who usually flees water like the plague.
Throughout the examples, Pascal Boireau, director of the ANSES animal health laboratory (National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety), paints a portrait of the master manipulators that are parasites. He also explains why they should not be considered only as pests to be eliminated.
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In his column, Benoît Tonson tells us about the strategies developed by our primate cousins to keep the parasites that complicate their existence at bay. Clémence Poirotte (German Primate Center) and Marie Charpentier (CNRS) discovered that female mandrills can count on their sense of smell to identify their parasitized congeners and adapt their social interactions accordingly. Olivier Kaisin (University of Liège) and his colleagues have noticed that lion tamarins seem to use cabreúva resin instead… a tree well known in traditional human medicine for its healing, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and antiparasitic properties!
Good listening !
Credits: Animation and design, Lionel Cavicchioli and Benoît Tonson. Directed by Romain Pollet. Credits music: “Chill Trap” by Aries Beats.
The authors do not work for, advise on, own any shares in, or receive funding from, any organization that may benefit from this article, and have declared no affiliation other than their research organization.