12 Unnecessarily Nightmarish Creatures That Scuttled Straight Out Of Hell
11. The "Zombie" Fungus Collective
Ever played The Last Of Us? With the big old zombie fungus that busts oh so attractively out of the faces of its unwitting victims? Great game.
But this is not a game, this is real life. Repeat, this is real life, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
The horrific fate of the Infected in The Last Of Us is based on a real-life genus of fungus known as Cordyceps. Fun pastimes of the Cordyceps include burrowing its way into already terrifying creatures such as tarantulas (like the Cordyceps ignota, pictured above), replacing its insides and then erupting its "fruiting bodies" (shudder) through its skin. Yum.
A species known as Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which specialises in ruining the lives of ants, even goes one step further and takes over the brain of its ant host.
As if a deadly fungus making its home in your thorax isn't bad enough, it adds the indignity of driving it around for a bit like a grisly stolen convertible, before making the ant commit suicide.
So not only does the ant die, but it has to take orders from a fungus before it does it. Nasty way to go.