Scientists have identified a single gene that allows a "caterpillar-brainwashing" virus to do its deed, from a new study. This virus forces the "zombie" caterpillars to climb trees, where the attacker liquefies its victims bodies and turns them into a dripping goo.
Gypsy moth caterpillars are healthy and happy, they go up into the trees at night to feed on leaves, and then climb back down in the morning to hide from predators during the day, they hide in bark crevices or in the soil- according to the study co-author Kelli Hoover, an entomologist at Penn State University.
Although caterpillars infected with a baculovirus, which is a type of virus that infects invertebrates, are forced to the treetops and reprogrammed to stay there until they meet a death well worthy of a "B" horror movie.
"When they are infected, as they get sicker they stay up in the trees and die up there," Hoover says.
The virus "ends up using just about all of the caterpillar to make more virus, and there are other genes in the virus that then make the caterpillar melt. So it becomes a pool of millions of virus particles that end up dropping onto the foliage below where it can infect other moths that eat those leaves."*
*credit to National Geographic
Although caterpillars infected with a baculovirus, which is a type of virus that infects invertebrates, are forced to the treetops and reprogrammed to stay there until they meet a death well worthy of a "B" horror movie.
"When they are infected, as they get sicker they stay up in the trees and die up there," Hoover says.
The virus "ends up using just about all of the caterpillar to make more virus, and there are other genes in the virus that then make the caterpillar melt. So it becomes a pool of millions of virus particles that end up dropping onto the foliage below where it can infect other moths that eat those leaves."*
*credit to National Geographic
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