Zombies Are Real!

BRAINS!!!

*WARNING: some gross stuff ahead, but what did you expect from this blog's title? 🤣

Happy International Beaver Day! So what’s that gotta do with zombies? Well, today got us thinking about one of our favorite “so bad, it’s good” zombie movies – Zombeavers! Really, you should check it out. It’s fully aware of its low budget and really embraces it, so you’ll be laughing out loud with it instead of at it.

*zombie beaver noises*
Seriously, check it out! It'll be the best DAM movie you've ever seen!

If you haven’t guessed by now, the movie is about zombie beavers 😜, but just how real are zombie animals? Unfortunately, they’re 100% real! 😨 Maybe not in the undead sense, but in the sense that these animals have their brains enslaved by parasites and mindlessly do their bidding. And because sharing is caring, we’re gonna share this nightmare fuel with you!

Zombie Caterpillars

Wasps are miserable, and Glyptapanteles takes it to the next level. These wasps lay their eggs inside caterpillars. When the eggs hatch, instant buffet for the larvae. As the larvae eat their way out of the hapless caterpillar, a few stay behind to take control of the caterpillar’s BRAIN and to manipulate the mostly-eaten caterpillar into protecting the other larvae as they grow. And this whole time, the caterpillar is alive!

Zombie Ants

We generally don’t have strong feelings towards ants (except maybe when they raid our pantries and get into our secret stash of Twinkies), so we certainly don’t wish ill on them. Tell that to Cordyceps unilateris, a spore producing fungi. When an ant inhales a Cordyceps’ spore, the fungi starts consuming “the non-vital soft tissues” of the ant – while it’s still alive (see a theme going on here?)! The fungi sprout mycelia into the brain of the ant and drives the ant to a suitable location where the fruiting body of Cordyceps EXPLODES out the body of the ant and spreads more spores.

Zombie Rats

It's all just been creepy crawlies low on the food chain, so we're safe, right? Right?! Well, let's go further up the food chain to rats. The zombifying culprit here is a parasitic protozoan called T. gondii. The real hosts of these parasites are cats in which they lay eggs. Once egg-laced feces are excreted and eaten by rats, that's when things get freaky. T. gondii spends its terrible twos in rats but really wants to make its way back to its primary host. So it MIND CONTROLS the rat to seek out cats so it can be eaten and bring T. gondii home! Did we mention that T. gondii can infect humans too?

Zombie Raccoons

Wow, that was a whirlwind, wasn’t it? Wait till you hear about zombie raccoons. Distemper is a highly contagious viral disease that affects raccoons, ferrets, and even dogs. We focus on raccoons as there was an outbreak in Dublin, Ohio back in 2019. Distemper starts as a respiratory illness but eventually makes its way to the brain. Infected raccoons were reported to walk around dazed, staggering, shuffling, and falling down. They bare their teeth as their lips and muzzle contract from seizures. Distemper even causes abnormal mineral deposits in the raccoons’ eyes which lead to glowing eyes. All the features of your classic zombie. And unlike rabies where the infected animal often die very quickly, animals with distemper show symptoms over several weeks giving plenty of opportunities to spread the virus.

Peace out and keep shufflin'

Sophie and Eric

That song was about zombies, right??

Before you shuffle off, why not chew on some of these tasty zombie pieces? A trend that'll surely never die out!😛

Image Source (top to bottom): GIPHY, The Domestic Rebel, Sally's Baking Addiction, Alana Jones-Mann, GIPHY