Zombie fungi control the behaviour of their insect hosts with exquisite precision. Ophiocordyceps compels ants to perform the death grip in a zone with just the right temperature and humidity to allow the fungus to fruit: a height of twenty-five centimetres above the forest floor. The fungus orients ants according to the direction of the sun, and infected ants bite in synchrony, at noon. They don’t bite any old spot on the leaf’s underside. Ninety-eight per cent of the time, the ants clamp onto a major vein.
