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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

A Visual Guide for Studying Behavioral Defenses to Pathogen Attacks in Leaf-Cutting Ants
Published on: October 12, 2018
Ancient death-grip leaf scars reveal ant-fungal parasitism
David P Hughes1, Torsten Wappler, Conrad C Labandeira
1Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. dhughes@oeb.harvard.edu
Abstract:
Parasites commonly manipulate host behaviour, and among the most dramatic examples are diverse fungi that cause insects to die attached to leaves. This death-grip behaviour functions to place insects in an ideal location for spore dispersal from a dead body following host death. Fossil leaves record many aspects of insect behaviour (feeding, galls, leaf mining) but to date there are no known examples of behavioural manipulation. Here, we document, to our knowledge, the first example of the stereotypical death grip from 48 Ma leaves of Messel, Germany, indicating the antiquity of this behaviour. As well as probably being the first example of behavioural manipulation in the fossil record, these data support a biogeographical parallelism between mid Eocene northern Europe and recent southeast Asia.
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