so you're saying it's possible to infilltrate an ant's mind?!?! *makes mental note*

that was actually a wildly informative piece ... i felt bad for the poor little ants ... i am always in awe with the circle of life!

Upvote for Attenborough.

my favorite parasite is a worm that drives small fish towards the surface of the water, where they are then picked up by birds. the parasite then enters the second stage of its life in the bird intestinal tract.

EVOLUTION RULEZ!

... i always want to see the 'behind the scenes' for these clips

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Parasites are scary things. How about Toxoplasmosis? It wraps around mice brains, to make them feel fearless of cats, because the beasties need the mice to be eaten by the cat to spread.

I read somewhere that something like half the people in France are infected with this bug from eating steak tartar (americain).

It's supposed to be like 90% of people infected with the cat brain thing in France. Makes them belligerent, promiscuous and less inclined to personal hygiene. In other words, French.

i never knew about the mice thing with toxoplasmosis, dag! interesting ...

most women in america know about toxoplasmosis because it is a bacteria you don't want to contract when you're pregnant due to the birth defects it can cause. it's most commonly transferred from cat's feces and then secondly, as you stated, from raw or undercooked meat!! yeech

...wow, there simply isn't enough discussion about the Frog disease, thanx Dag..

...and title would work well as an analogous description of the Jack-ass' recent coop of the Elephant's control of the brain....

...euthanasia, baby, those ants are no-quarter little bastards..wait till' the Chinese start moving.....Texas has a head start, we live with Fire Ants™....

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Kind of a tangent derail, but this section on Toxoplasmosis is fascinating:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Possible_effects_on_human_behavior

don't say that too loud, dag ... lindsay lohan will use that as her excuse for frequent car accidents!!

I wonder if this fungus attacks fire ants? It would be a great way to control this pest.

Well, they use those special flies for imported fire ants. See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1221_051221_fire_ants.html for an example.

All I need is a way to adapt this to humans and I'm thinking screenplay.

That's seriously FUBAR.

And Wumpus, wouldn't that be Body Snatchers?

I dunno...could be.

I'm so very creeped out right now

So this could support the theory of zombies from all those movies about them. Sounds better then the comies making a deadly searum with the zombie strain to afflict a small but determined group of straglers who get slowly killed off one by one and then turn into zombies themselves. I hope this fungi only continues to effect insects.

I wonder why there aren't spores that do this to humans?

"All I need is a way to adapt this to humans and I'm thinking screenplay."

There was an episode of the X Files about a mushroom that caused people to go into a cave to be digested by some plant.

This reminds me of crickets going to water beside of the worm. See http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=6089 as an example.

*promote

Re-promoting this video to the front page as a VideoSift Classic. Originally published on Sunday 3rd December 2006 (promotion called by gold star member HistNerd)

Bah! You guys really want to get a parasite on my kinds.

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The link to this video has been flagged as dead. Fix it within 7 days or it will be discarded (dead called by gold star member deputydog)

Yay, but there are still plenty of them: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ants+fungi

thanks ant, *undead

The link to this video has been fixed (undead called by original submitter pigeon)

Pigeon: You're alive!

"Makes them belligerent, promiscuous and less inclined to personal hygiene. In other words, French."

Who make a war ? Isn't it possible to get rid of troll posts ? Oo maybe it's an attack from a fungi ?

Upvoted because I like insects.

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Adding video to channels (Dark) - requested by Zonbie.

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This published video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by ant.

rasch187 has fixed this video's dead embed code - no Power Points awarded because rasch187's points are already fully charged.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Cordyceps-Attack-of-the-killer-fungi-Planet-Earth-Clip

ant cannot declared this a dupe of the specified video because ant submitted the original - ignoring dupeof request by ant.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'spores, parasites, ants, attenborough' to 'spores, parasites, ants, Attenborough, Cordyceps, Planet, Earth' - edited by notarobot

A better embed lives here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8

*fear *horrorshow *documentary

Adding video to channels (Fear, Horrorshow) - requested by notarobot.

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So these ants are being taken over and controlled by parasites. The same thing is being done to this country by illegal immigrants (parasites) and our immigration system.

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