Researchers from the University of Copenhagen recently reported a unique deadly fungus survives by bewitching male flies into unwilling necrophilia with dead female flies. The longer the female carcass has been lying rotting, the greater the urge of males to mate with them, Science Daily reported.
The fungus attracts male flies by releasing the irresistible sex pheromones that invite them to mate with the corpse. In the process, they also infect them and reset the cycle of doom.
Master Manipulator Turns Female Flies Into Zombies
The strategy of the Entomophthora muscae is tapping the power of lust for its survival. The parasitic fungus can eject its infected spores up to 10 meters per second, one of the fastest movements in nature, and then infect a female housefly, where it will spread and slowly consume it alive from within.
After six days, the fungus takes over the female's body and forces it to the highest point until it dies. Then the fungus turns it into a zombie female fly that releases chemical signals known as sesquiterpenes that attract male flies.
The pheromones released will cause an incredible urge for males to mate with the carcasses, explains associate professor Henrik H. De Fine Licht. He said that their observations suggest that this deliberate strategy makes the fungus a true master manipulator.
In their experiment, researchers introduced male flies to both infected and non-infected dead females inside the same testing enclosure. They found that females in the late stage of spore release attract males because they start to perform mating attempts with both females, likely due to the chemicals inside the enclosure, ZME Science reported.
Around 73% of male flies in the study then started to mate with infected female bodies within 25-30 hours after they died, while only 15% of the males mated with females who had been dead for three to eight hours.
That shows that the longer the female flies are dead, the more alluring they become to males who become unwilling necrophiliacs. Due to this, they are also bathed in the spores of the fungus and also suffer the same gruesome fate.
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Deadly Fungus Could Be Used as Biological Pest Control
The deadly fungus could grow and extend towards the part of the brain that controls the movements of the flies and control it to fly or crawl to the highest point possible on a wall or perched on tall vegetation where spore release is at its optimal for infecting new insects.
That means it is accomplishing two purposes while infecting a single insect. They infect flies to serve their interests and to entice new hosts to join them. Although it may be gruesome, it is strangely fascinating and researchers think scientists could learn from these mechanisms and weaponize the fungus.
De Fine Licht noted that flies are unhygienic because they could sicken humans and animals since they carry and spread bacteria. The new research found a novel way of limiting housefly populations. He thinks that the fragrances from the deadly fungus could be used as biological pest control that attracts healthy males to a fly trap instead of a female corpse.
The team discussed their findings in the study titled "Pathogenic Fungus Uses Volatiles to Entice Male Flies Into Fatal Matings With Infected Female Cadavers," published in The ISME Journal.
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