Blog number 365 **** 19 January 2009
I just read the most amazing thing in Elizabeth Thomas' book, "The Hidden Life of Deer."
Elizabeth describes some of her experiences with authority figures and the efforts they make in order to avoid appearances of anthropomorphism. Continuing this theme, she describes obvious human attributes animals continuously show, such as reasoning, planing, communicating, and she even once heard a mouse sing. I have read of camels swaying to music. Dancing? I'm sure.
She then goes on to say that when you see an animal do something, that something is very important to that animal in some way or another. Important for their survival. She then describes the activities of a fungus called, Cordyceps, and if you have trouble believing the following, I suggest you Google it like I just did.
When an insect walks over Cordyceps, the fungus secretes a chemical that burns a hole in the insects chitin and the fungus then enters the body of the insect via this hole.The fungus secretes antibiotics to protect the insect from other funguses, injects the insect with insecticide to ward off other insects that might harm this insect, and it then proceeds to eat non-vital organs until it has eaten them all and then it eats a small portion of the brain which causes the insect to climb a tree to the top.When the insect is anchored at the top of the tree, the fungus eats the rest of the brain and the insect dies, whereupon Cordyceps releases spores on the wind from a tree top rather than from the ground, which it would have to do without the insect's help.
Can plants think?
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