RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! The body snatcher's invasion has begun.

Ok ok, unless you be an insect(oid) you don't have to run...
I guess everybody here have watched a least one movie about alien parasites that infect their (human) hosts, using their bodies as cocoons, controlling their willing, growing up within the organism, until reaching the adult form and then hatching outside world. The first image that comes to mind is the classic Ridley Scott's alien chestbuster but then we just breathe a sigh, 'cos we know that horror was a fiction... Well, it seems that to some small creatures of nature, that horror is pretty real.

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What you see above is the exact moment where the sinister fungus of the genus Cordyceps is hatching outside the body of a tropical rainforest ant.
This fungus has the painful and unbelievable ability to parasitize insects by manipulating their behavior with the goal of increasing their chances of reproduction. And how this contamination becomes fatal?
Well, a healthy insect comes into direct contact with another infected. At first, apparently, nothing happens, but the spores are germinating on the surface of the insect body. Spores migrate to the interior through the trachea and small openings, called spiracles (which also serve to breath). Fine filaments of the fungus, called mycelium or mycelia, immediately begin to torture the poor bug.
Once inside the insect body, mycelia begin to develop and grow within the body cavity, absorbing and taking all soft tissue, but avoid reaching your vital organs. Then, the complete vulnerable insect turns into a kind of "zombie", carrying a cruel fungus within its consumed body. During that time, the insect has strange behaviors with great lack of coordination and once its contamination put in danger the whole colony (in the case of social insects like ants and bees), the other insects use to carry it away of the inhabitable zone.
And then, finally, the fungus reaches the brain, devouring everything that is there. The fruiting bodies of fungi are well fed, of course ... And then they start to sprout, through the joints of the exoskeleton of the host. The fungus matures, releasing in the air and spreading spores to infect other insects around, thus completing its life cycle.

WARNING: Strong graphics!!!



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The contaminated ant was completely isolated from the colony. Very impressive.

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Notice the size of the hole the fungus left in the poor grasshopper... This must have hurt.
And the insects below almost have a fungus forest in their busted bodies.

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0b0904452535.jpeg[/atsimg]

I think, us humans, don't have to worry about something like that... do we have??

Source (in portuguese)


[edit on 2-4-2010 by ucalien]

One thing that caught my attention were the fibers the fungus puts out thru the insect's body, causing severe discomfort. My next thought was Could Morgenall's (sp) Disease be a form of this fungus? Or, (Let's hope not) a engineered form of this fungus to test on people......?

Something like this would make a most horrific biological weapon if developed.

And there is nothing that makes that impossible. The military could easily get that fungus and play with it's dna until they get something that affects humans.

That is how biological weapons are made in the first place.

Scary scary thoughts...

Originally posted by wylekat
One thing that caught my attention were the fibers the fungus puts out thru the insect's body, causing severe discomfort. My next thought was Could Morgenall's (sp) Disease be a form of this fungus? Or, (Let's hope not) a engineered form of this fungus to test on people......?

Dude that is really scary.

I was thinking something like that but you really laid it out much better for me.

I hadn't considered Morgellons being a prototype of something like this, if you will.

Very interesting ideas wylekat

Excellent post, scary as hell….S+F...

Wow, this reminds e of an X-Files episode where some workers some where have this kind of fungi in their chests...

Nature is a wierd place... good find...

reply to post by wylekat

One thing that caught my attention were the fibers the fungus puts out thru the insect's body, causing severe discomfort. My next thought was Could Morgenall's (sp) Disease be a form of this fungus? Or, (Let's hope not) a engineered form of this fungus to test on people......?

... "severe discomfort"?? You were very nice and soft, man. The insect is completely destroyed from inside... However, I couldn't find nothing about Morgenall (Morgenau???) disease... Please bring something here if you have some data about it.

reply to post by muzzleflash

The military could easily get that fungus and play with it's dna until they get something that affects humans.

I hope the "could" stay "could" and not "can"...

reply to post by ChemBreather

Quite odd is the behavior of the attacked ant... acting desperate, getting controlled... becoming a zombie... I wonder if it feels like possessed... I mean, it's an insect that have conscious of its living condition and then suddenly something strange take its body... Hmmmmmm

Saw this on the Discovery channel recently (it also has been posted here on ATS multiple times).

I do not come here for rehashed recent media.

But, you did take a lot of time to make the post and spent considerable effort in making it "polished"...so I will flag it.

But, again, I must say-

"I do not come here to hear the echoing of the mainstream media".

Originally posted by ucalien
reply to post by wylekat

 

One thing that caught my attention were the fibers the fungus puts out thru the insect's body, causing severe discomfort. My next thought was Could Morgenall's (sp) Disease be a form of this fungus? Or, (Let's hope not) a engineered form of this fungus to test on people......?

... "severe discomfort"?? You were very nice and soft, man.

The insect is completely destroyed from inside... However, I couldn't find nothing about Morgenall (Morgenau???) disease... Please bring something here if you have some data about it.

Hi ucalien


It actually called Morgellon, it was a time that Rense was full of it…

www.morgellons-disease-research.com...

Everything you wanted to know about Morgellon's and couldn't find out, because I didn't know how to spell it.


All about Morgellon's



Link looks like crap, but it works.

[edit on 2-4-2010 by wylekat]

reply to post by amkia

It actually called Morgellon, it was a time that Rense was full of it… Morgellon's disease

Tnks by have provided the link. I just didn't know this disease and I'm sure that few people know about it.

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Morgellons is a disease that is fairly new as diseases go. It was first reported around 2001 and to this day nobody can determine its cause, how to cure it, or even what it is. It’s characterized by itchy rashes, strange fibers that protrude from the skin, lethargy, the feeling of bugs crawling under their flesh and more. Some people have mild cases of Morgellons and some have extreme cases; but both groups have something in common: They don’t have the answers they seek. The medical community for the most part, dismisses them.

Hmmmmm... it makes me think about military engineered bio-weapons.




[edit on 2-4-2010 by ucalien]

Well, if I suddenly disappear, you all will know why.

It's quite possible that a toxoplasma infection causes old ladies to become cat-women.

Toxoplasma causes rats to sacrifice themselves to cats, as well. So in a sense, the disease causes other mammals to support infected cats, so that the cats can infect other cats.

This is why bugs are damn creepy.

reply to post by wylekat


hell yeah man...Morgellans Disease is a terrible affliction

I will stand toe to toe with any medical "expert" on this #

I have personally seen the fibers, and "devices" pulled off of a close personal friend of mine

for some reason we spend millions on a flu that killed around a thousand people last year...create (and contaminate) vaccines, cause a national/worldwide media push, and terrorize with unsubstantiated stories of the horror of this bs man made/released affliction

but man....if you even say fibrous protrusions, or mention Morgellans to a "doctor" or dermatologist...hope you have thick skin, and a padded seat

they will first laugh at you, then kick your ass out on the street...forget about a referral

as far as the body snatching fungi...that is some trippy stuff

I have seen alot of these scenes, and others on Discovey, Science Channel, History Channel, etc.

fortunately for the insects, it usually kills them before the majority of the growth pattern

reply to post by Bedlam

It's quite possible that a toxoplasma infection causes old ladies to become cat-women. Toxoplasma causes rats to sacrifice themselves to cats, as well. So in a sense, the disease causes other mammals to support infected cats, so that the cats can infect other cats.

Can u be more clear, please?? If possible post images.

Originally posted by ucalien
Can u be more clear, please?? If possible post images.

Toxoplasma gondii is a single-celled parasite that infests cats. In a cat, it rarely causes effects of any sort, unless the cat's immune system is compromised. It can only reproduce in a cat, although it can infest other mammals without reproduction.

When a cat first becomes infested with toxoplama, it generally sheds toxoplama eggs in the poop, which can remain viable for over a year.

Several mammals other than cats can become infested with toxoplasma as intermediate hosts, which means that the parasites will live in you but will not be able to reproduce. They can, however, hide out in your tissues forever by forming cysts.

Toxoplasma has a nasty ability, and that is that they can affect the intermediate hosts' behavior in such a way as to make them more supportive of their primary host, the cat. So if a mouse or rat is infected with toxoplasma, it will present itself to a cat to be eaten. This will infect the cat, if it's not already infected. Literally, the mouse or rat will cease to be afraid of the cat, and will feel an apparently irresistible attraction to the smell of cats. So the parasite basically asserts a sort of mind control over the mouse or rat and forces it to go to a cat to be killed and eaten, so that the toxoplasma can jump to a cat and reproduce.

In humans, toxoplasma infection will occasionally cause schizophrenia to develop, and in old ladies it often manifests itself as "cat lady syndrome" or "cat hoarding". In other words, the toxoplasma will cause some humans to collect reproductive vectors for it.

Cool, eh?



[edit on 2-4-2010 by Bedlam]

well its nice to know FINLY what that stuff is on my shin.
have had it 3 yaers now iches like crazy brakes out just like that photo then heals then the cycle repets . yea and week spells dizzy at times usaly not long thank who ever
luckly for me its milde only a 4 square in area on my shin is affected by this .
and half teh time its going its only during it growing faze its ichy and brakes out like that anoying but q la sa ra sa ra
ps most of the time my case looks like the hand photo o and when it first showed up it had my hands arms feet legs now just my shin .
no doctor has been able to tell me what it was

[edit on 2-4-2010 by xxcalbier]