For 60 years, scientists have known that one species of small, rust-colored ant known as Formica archboldi likes to decorate its nests with skulls, or head cases, of several kinds of trap-jaw ants.

The ant's head loosens from the body ... protective plate that's roughly the same color as the ant's exoskeleton, and two hairlike breathing "horns" extend from the pupa out on either side ...

The planet is thought to be home to quadrillions of ants, coming in all manner of shapes, colors, and sizes ... than one type of turtle ant soldier head to be found; some have enormous plate ...

C. explodens is no exception. Where minor workers look like a pretty normal ant, the beefier major workers have a relatively gigantic head. "The entrance to their nest is a small hole, pretty much ...

“And around about two weeks [after that] I found that the heads would fall off,” he told WIRED, “and lo and behold I could see the pupa inside the ant’s head.” The flies he’d observed ...

After a few hours, the movement stops as the fungus kills the ant, continues to grow throughout the victim's head, and then sprouts out of the back of the head. The fungus anchors itself to the ...