Diya Adhikary, Amity University Kolkata
We might have encountered the term zombies in movies such as “Resident Evil”, “The Walking Dead” etc. According to folklore and pop culture, a zombie is either a reawakened corpse with a voracious appetite or someone bitten by another zombie infected with a zombie virus. Haitian voodoo culture has reported several verified cases of zombies.
During fieldwork in Jaegerspris (the town in Denmark) and Amager (an island in Denmark), Danish researchers discovered dozens of fungi-infected flies, reported in the “Journal of Invertebrate Pathology” (September 2020).
In 1993, Prof Jørgen Eilenberg from the department of plant and environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen discovered a new species, named Strongwellsea tigrinae in North Zealand in eastern Denmark. In 1998, Dorthe Britt Tiwald (a student of Prof Eilenberg) observed another new species, named, Strongwellsea acerosa, in a residential area in greater Copenhagen. These two new species of fungi (Entomophthorales: Entomophthoraceae) are host specific and infect the dipteran hosts from the genus Coenosia. They can infect and turn the two species of Danish fly-Coenosia tigrina and Coenosia testacea, into zombies. Hence, 2020 brings us “Zombie Flies”.
The two species of Danish fly are similar to the ordinary houseflies but once they are infected with the fungi, they undergo a dreadful change. The fungi devour them from inside out, creating holes in the abdomen (like small rockets) of the still-living flies, and then produce clumps of spores (orange in colour) which spread by dropping out of the holes. They eat flies alive while shooting out thousands of spores on to other victims.
Professor Eilenberg and his colleagues suspect that the fungi keep the flies alive, active, and, in a high energy state, while they devour their abdomens, by doping the flies with some amphetamine-like substances. The fungi might also produce some antimicrobial substances to keep other pathogens away from the holes in the abdomen (wound site), to keep the flies alive for longer. The infected flies live for days, behave normally and socialize with other flies, while the fungi continue to consume their hemolymph, genitals, fat reserves, reproductive organs, and then their muscles. The act of keeping the host alive while releasing spores is termed Active Host Transmission (AHT).
The zombie flies remain alive for days during this process and manage to spread spores far and wide. They die once the fungi have spread throughout their abdomen. These zombie flies can spread the spores even after their death as the abdomen crumbles, releasing more spores from their inside. These thick-walled spores remain dormant during winter and become active in the spring. From a single fly, thousands of torpedo-shaped spores can be released and when these spores come in contact with the other flies, they manage to stick to the cuticle and get into their abdomen.
Several instances have claimed that fungi, bacteria, worms, and wasps are often involved in the process of Zombification. Though it’s widespread in the animal world no such instances have been found in humans. Several reports have shown the ability of fungi to take over the brain of ants. Exploration of such new species is still in progress, as this group of insect-destroying fungi may represent the next frontier for drug discovery.
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References:-
- Jørgen Eilenberg, Verner Michelsen, Richard A. Humber, Strongwellsea tigrinae and Strongwellsea acerosa (Entomophthorales: Entomophthoraceae), two new species infecting dipteran hosts from the genus Coenosia (Muscidae). Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, Volume-175, 2020, 107444, ISSN 0022-2011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2020.107444.
- Onion Amanda, Sullivan Missy and Mullen Matt. Zombies, HISTORY, September 13, 2017. https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-zombies
- Worrall Simon. Zombies are everywhere. Parasites mean you could be one too. Book Talk, https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/animals/2018/11/zombies-parasites-infectious-disease-book-talk
- https://www.wionews.com/science/zombie-flies-discovered-by-scientists-in-denmark-350075
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