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HBO’s Newest Zombie Series is Inspired By Real-Life Zombie Fungi

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If you are looking for something new to watch and you are into zombies, look no further…

HBO has a new zombie series that is scary good! Like, so scary because it is inspired by real-life zombie fungi that really exists today…

HBO Max

Scary, right?

If you’ve been following us for sometime, you likely saw a post we wrote a few years ago about Zombie Spiders.

Now, if you missed it, the premise is this – it’s a fungus that infects insects (traditionally spiders and ants) and controls what they do.

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Is zombie fungi real?

According to the creators of “The Last of Us”, they were inspired by a sequence in BBC’s Planet Earth documentary series that shows an ant infected with a fungus that hijacks its brain, forcing it to climb a tree and dangle above the forest floor.

BBC

From there, the fungus digests the ant’s body from the inside out and unleashes a shower of spores to create more zombie ants.

It’s quite creepy and disgusting.

Originally, the zombie ant fungus was believed to be part of the group cordyceps, but genetic studies now say it’s in another insect-parasitizing fungus group, ophiocordyceps.

Can Zombie Fungus infect humans?

As of right now, zombie fungus cannot live in humans.

“They’re super species-specific,” said Charissa de Bekker, an assistant professor in the biology department at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

But that didn’t stop the creators from creating a zombie series that did allow the fungus to live in humans…

HBO Max

HBO Max’s new series – The Last of Us is inspired based off that very thing.

Well to be clear, the series is based off the video game The Last of Us but the series follows the game almost exactly (a few changes are made for the visual appeal).

HBO Max

The series info is:

Joel and Ellie must survive ruthless killers and monsters on a trek across America after an outbreak.

HBO Max

The series stars Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna, and Merle Dandridge.

You probably know Pedro Pascal from The Mandalorian and Bella Ramsey from Game of Thrones.

Honestly, I don’t want to spoil it too much for you but if you like zombies or are a fan of the video game, you need to watch this series.

HBO Max

You can watch the trailer of The Last of Us below. New episodes air every Sunday on HBO Max.

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