Zombie fly fungus that seduces healthy male flies to mate with female carcasses
A research team at the University of Copenhagen is investigating the reality of pathogenic fungi that survive by infecting common
Pathogenic fungus uses volatiles to entice male flies into fatal matings with infected female cadavers | The ISME Journal
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-022-01284-x
Zombie fly fungus lures healthy male flies to mate with female corpses – University of Copenhagen
https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2022/07/zombie-fly-fungus-lures-healthy-male-flies-to-mate-with-female-corpses/
The research team is investigating the fungus ' Entomophthora muscae ' that infects and reproduces female houseflies. According to the research team, female houseflies infected with Entomophthora muscae are eroded by fungi while they are alive. About 6 days after infection, houseflies are forced to move to higher vegetation and walls by Entomophthora muscae before dying. After that, Entomophthora muscae breeding in the dead female housefly begins to release a chemical called ' sesquiterpenes '.
Henrik H. Definericht of the Faculty of Environmental and Botanical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, who studied Entomophthora muscae, said, 'The chemicals released by the carcasses of flies infected with Entomophthora muscae attract male flies and'mating with carcasses of female flies. It acts as a pheromone that provokes the urge to 'want to'. ' When a female fly infected with Entomophthora muscae and a male fly mate, the male fly is also exposed to fungal spores and eventually dies.
Below is a photo of a male housefly mating with a female housefly carcass infected with Entomophthora muscae. If you click the photo below, the photo without mosaic will be displayed, but since it is grotesque, please browse at your own risk. The swelling of the abdomen of the female housefly with white spores clearly indicates that it is infected with Entomophthora muscae.
Over time, female housefly carcasses infected with Entomophthora muscae will become more attractive to male houseflies, according to the research team. Specifically, only 15% of the male houseflies surveyed mated with female houseflies within 3-8 hours of death from a fungal infection, but 25-30 after death. The rate of mating with the female corpse of the time seems to jump up to 73%.
“The longer the post-mortem time of a female fly, the more attractive it becomes to the male,” said Definericht, explaining why the longer the post-mortem time, the more attractive the male is. This is because the amount of muscae spores increases over time, increasing the fascinating scent (pheromone). '
The research by Definericht et al. May also lead to the development of more effective fly repellents in the future: 'Flies are very unsanitary and by transmitting E. coli and other diseases, humans. And can make animals sick, so for example in areas where food is produced, it is necessary to control the outbreak of flies, where Entomophthora muscae may help. The scent produced by Entomophthora muscae. By using it as a biological pesticide, it may be possible to collect healthy male flies instead of dead bodies. '
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