When an at least six-mile-wide asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, life on our planet suffered one of the worst mass extinctions of all time. The cataclysm not only wiped out almost all the ...

One of the interesting things here is that ants have no capacity to think “uh, oh… what do we do now? Oh. How about fungus?” So they must have already had some adaptation(s) to finding/consuming ...

We tend to think of agriculture as a human innovation. But insects beat us to it by millions of years. Various ant species cooperate with fungi, creating a home for them, providing them with nutrients ...

Ant (scientific name: Camponotus atriceps) infected with fungus (scientific name: Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato). The fungus forces the ant to climb off the forest floor and bite down on a ...

One kind of tiny ant can serve as a monumental example for how to keep members of a community safe from pathogens. A new ...

'Weed early and often' is the key to a productive garden. Interestingly, certain species of ants are also avid gardeners, a practice they've refined over 50 million years. They too weed their ...

Around the world, a parasitic fungus transforms ants into "zombies." The fungus is like something out of a horror movie: The organism hijacks the body and brain of its ant host, mind-controlling it ...

Certain ants appear to alter their nest networks to prevent epidemics, offering inspiration for disease control interventions in the human world as well.

When building a bird nest in ant territory, the best defense could be an offensive fungus. Swollen-thorn acacia trees are aggressively defended by multiple species of ants. And yet, several species of ...

In this episode of Tiny Show and Tell Us, we consider if bacteriophages could become our biggest allies in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Then we cover the historical role of "night soil men ...

As the climate warms the planet and temperatures rise, some fungi are figuring out how to exist at higher temperatures than they normally like. Enter zombie concerns. Some real-life fungi are already ...

A new study from Smithsonian scientists analyzes ant and fungus species, and uncovers the origins of their close partnership A worker of the fungus-farming ant species Mycetophylax asper, collected in ...