“The Last of Us” in real life: This is the fungus that is turning spiders into zombies

At first, the changes are subtle—a twitch of a limb, a sluggishness in movement, a moment of hesitation that wasn’t there before. Then the body stiffens, shudders, and moves again, but something is wrong. The motions are jerky, unnatural, as if guided by an unseen force. The head tilts, limbs lock, and for a moment, it goes completely still. Then, with a sudden, eerie precision, it begins to move—not like itself, but as if something else is in control. The creature that once was is now just a vessel, hijacked by a parasite with one singular purpose.

To spread.

But this isn’t a scene from The Last of Us, the smash hit post-apocalyptic drama set twenty years into a pandemic created by a fungal infection turning the victims into zombies. It’s real life in a cave in Ireland, and the hapless creature is a cave-dwelling spider. The spiders prefer to stay on their webs, but once infected the fungus appears to take control of their brains, making the zombified spiders move off the web and out to a place more suitable to spread the fungus’ spores. Once there, the fungus kills the spider, grows over its body and releases its spores.

The researchers said they did not know exactly how the fungus, called Gibellula attenboroughii, takes control of the spider, but their hypothesis is that it releases chemicals into the spider’s brain that makes it behave like this, moving out into the open where circulating air currents can spread the spores more effectively.

Other zombie fungi

A number of fungi have been identified as being able to infect and control insects. A different species of Gibellula (G. aurea) appears to make its spider victims move to the underside of leaves, again with the plan of releasing spores more effectively.

Zombie ant fungus forces its hosts to leave the nest for the forest floor where the conditions are better for fungal growth. They attach themselves to a leaf, taking four to 10 days to die, at which point the fungus grows out of the ant’s head, rupturing to release spores. The zombie ant fungus was the inspiration for The Last Of Us.

Luckily neither the zombie ant fungus or the newly discovered zombie spider fungus can infect humans and take control of their brains.

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