This Killer Fungus Turns Flies into Zombies | Deep Look

Something is growing inside that fruit fly in your kitchen. At dusk, the fly points its wings straight up and dies in a gruesome pose so that a fungus can ooze out and fire hundreds of reproductive spores.

DEEP LOOK is a ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small.

00:00 Introduction
00:22 Fruit Fly - Drosophila melanogaster
00:35 Fruit Fly Ingests Spores
01:00 Fruit Fly Behaves Erratically
01:11 Summiting
01:21 Fungus Takes Over The Fly's Mind
01:38 Death Pose
01:58 Entomophthora muscae, a.k.a. "The Fly Destroyer"
02:09 Spore Launchers
02:53 Secondary Spores
03:11 How Does A Fungus Take Control Of A Brain?
03:36 Can We Harness This Fungus For Our Benefit?

Some of the scariest monsters are the ones that grow inside another being and take over its body. Think of the movie Alien, where the reptile-like space creature explodes out of its victim’s chest.

That monster might be fictional, but scientists are studying a fungus that’s horrifyingly real — at least for the flies it invades, turns into a zombie-like state and kills in order to reproduce.

“Oh, it’s a nightmare for the flies,” said entomologist Brad Mullens, who studied the fungus at the University of California, Riverside.

The fungus is known by its scientific name, Entomophthora muscae, which means “fly destroyer.” It lives off houseflies and fruit flies, among others.

“It’s a crazy system,” said Carolyn Elya, a biologist at Harvard. “The fungus only kills at dusk.”

Like a killer puppeteer, the fungus follows a precise clock.

At dusk on the fourth or fifth day after it picks up a fungal spore, an infected fruit fly stops flying. It starts behaving erratically, for example climbing up and down toothpicks that Elya puts into the vials where she keeps the infected insects.

Then the fly climbs to the top of the toothpick, a behavior Elya and other scientists refer to as “summiting.”

In an unusual twist, the fly then extends its mouthpart down, and some liquid drips out and glues the fly to the surface it’s standing on. Over the next 10 minutes, the fly’s wings ascend until they’re pointing upwards and it dies frozen in this lifelike pose.

Soon after, white spongy fungus oozes out of its abdomen. This white goo is made up of hundreds of lollipop-shaped protrusions which each launch a microscopic bell-shaped spore at high speed. Now the spores just need to get into another fly to grow.

--- Could this or a similar fungus “zombify” humans?
“No, it's very unlikely,” Elya said. “We can control our bodily temperature to kill invaders.”

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🏆Congratulations🏆 to the following fans on our Deep Look Community Tab for coming up with the top titles for a horror movie starring this fungus:

Joginiz - "Flyday the 13th'
KingXDragoon - "Pretty Fly for a dead guy"
Laura Garrard - The Fungus Among Us!!
Lysiasolo - "Parafungal activity"
De paus van de Lilith Kerk - The whitecorpse horror (as an ode to HP Lovecraft "the Dunwich horror")

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#fruitflies #deeplook

[alexvasquez]

We had a HUGE boom of this in our backyard last year and I had no idea what it was and had to google it. Great video.

[eliasalias]

"The fungus can't hurt humans"


Looks like it got her.

[moonlight]

The way she said "oh and they don't hurt humans" made me think she was gonna say 'not yet' and start evil laughing

[vel]

"scientists have tried to harness it's power-"

the beginning of every scifi horror movie ever

[ErhmJannickMansson]

What if, for instance, the world were to get slightly warmer?

[ZecharyK]

0:30 flies don't "innocently walk around"
I've seen them menacingly rub their hands together.
They're up to something. Something sinister.

[maverickdarkrath]

"Cant hurt humans"
That's exactly what a zombified fungus human would say

[TrixieTheGreat]

3:30 ...but don't worry. The fungus can't hurt humans. **long pause**
I was waiting for "yet".

[dannywang]

“Scientists have tried to harness its power for our own benefit!”

Me: STOP

[cloroxbleach]

Everybody gangsta til a mad scientist gets his hands on this fungus.

[murtazashajapurwala]

"The fungus can't hurt humans"


Literally the start of every zombie movie ever.

[Music-xblx]

I hate when flies rub their hands together it’s like they’re plotting something.

[magicbrian]

"Scientists have tried to harness it's power to our benefit" has to be the scariest sentence in this video. Do they not realize that's ALWAYS HOW IT STARTS IN THE MOVIES?!

[yoshiexploshi]

“Don’t worry, the fungus can’t hurt humans.”

The Last Of Us opening: *plays*

[robsyhood]

"The wings shoots up"
**scary sound effect**

me: **literally pauses**

[sawdust]

Just a calm relaxed explanation of the most horrific and nightmarish thing imaginable.

[Noideabb]

This is literally the storyline for the last of us

[TCOphox]

_THE WORST PART IS THAT THIS ISN'T CLICKBAIT_

[suprmeaim_]

“The fungus can’t hurt humans”

2054: The Last Of Us Part III *real life edition*

[UhgeneIgnorian]

"The fungus cant harm humans"
Sounds like someone whose been taken over by a spore would say.