The undead won’t be our undoing.

Yet, from classic literature to the latest pop culture, zombies are a fixture: someone or something takes over certain creatures and makes them do whatever the controlling influence wants.

Though “zombie” came from Vodou (Voodoo) — a Haitian religion in which corpses were supposedly reanimated by magical spells — we can thank the movies for the modern fixation with mindless, destructive ghouls.

The Night of the Living Dead (1968) really got things started and, ever since, zombies have been popularized by comics, TV shows, and video games, including the Walking Dead, Resident Evil, and the Last of Us. It’s all fiction, of course.

But few people realize that such behaviour is real in the natural world. In a process known as zombification, one organism such as a fungus or a virus controls another creature’s behaviour, forcing the victim to serve the interests of the master.

The best example is a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis which fatally infects ants. These body snatchers produce pollen-size spores that fall onto an ant from a tree or plant overhead. The spores get inside the insect’s body without killing it, then spread in the form of a yeast.

As the spores do their work, the victim stops communicating with others in the colony and drifts about aimlessly. Eventually, it becomes anxious and hyperactive.

© Sarnia Observer