When people first learn about cordyceps — the parasitic fungus that hijacks an ant’s body, forces it to climb, bite down on a leaf, and then kills it to release spores — the reaction is almost universal: that’s evil.
It looks like a horror film written by nature itself. A mind-controlling organism. A body turned into a puppet. A living being used as disposable infrastructure.
But that reaction tells us more about us than it does about the fungus.
Cordyceps is not evil. It isn’t cruel. It isn’t clever. It isn’t even conscious. It is a chemical system that evolved because it worked. We only call it monstrous because it violates something we care deeply about: autonomy.
We are moral creatures. We care about consent, agency, and suffering. When we see an ant lose control of its own body, our human moral instincts switch on. We read intention where there is none. We imagine a villain where there is only biochemistry.
What cordyceps actually does is disturbingly simple. It releases proteins that interfere with the ant’s nervous system — altering dopamine, serotonin, circadian rhythms, and muscle control. The ant climbs because its chemistry tells it to. It bites because its muscles are triggered to lock. The fungus spreads because those genes survive.
No planning. No hatred. No sadism. Just selection.
The real discomfort comes from what this implies about us.
Because cordyceps reveals something unsettling: you don’t need a mind to control a body — you just need access to its chemistry. Human behaviour is also steered by neurotransmitters, hormones, habits, and feedback loops. Addiction, compulsion, ideology, and even love all run on chemical signalling. We experience them as choices, but they are built on systems that evolved long before we did.
When we look at cordyceps and feel horror, we are really looking at the fragility of our own sense of free will.
We want to believe we are sovereign beings, deciding our lives from the inside out. Cordyceps suggests a darker truth: much of what we do is shaped by processes that don’t care about us at all — only about whether they replicate.
The fungus doesn’t hate the ant.
It just uses it.
That’s why cordyceps feels like a warning rather than a monster. It shows us a world where control can exist without consciousness, where domination doesn’t need a tyrant, and where systems can steer lives without ever knowing they exist.
The real question isn’t whether cordyceps is moral.
It’s whether we are as free as we think we are.
This idea can feel unsettling. But it also opens a more humane response: less judgement, more curiosity; less punishment, more attention to conditions.
Morality still matters.
But it comes second.
No planning. No hatred. No sadism. Just selection. The real discomfort comes from what this implies about us.
Bridget Nicholls | Producer / Creator