7% of the entire Earth’s surface is occupied by jungles. Scientists have made their way into only a small part of the rainforests, but there are still many mysteries lurking in the depths. The jungle is not only dangerous and adrenaline, but also a good way to relax, for lovers of acute feelings. If you like excitement, but you are not going to the jungle yet, then try crazy time last spin.
Here are 3 of the strangest finds of recent years, made under the dense shadow of a tropical forest.
Looking for an example of mind control in science fiction literature? Drop your books and take a ticket to a tropical country, for example, Brazil, and then go to the heart of the jungle. Next, look for a leaf at a height of 25 centimeters from the ground. And finally look under it. If you’re lucky, you’ll see an ant clutching a leaf vein with its jaws. Alas, this ant does not control itself. His body is now at the mercy of a parasitic fungus, cordyceps. Once the fungus gets into the ant’s body and starts growing in it, cordyceps takes control of the poor man’s mind. The parasite forces the insect to leave a safe place and climb the trunk of the nearest plant, all this happens within just one week. At about a height of 25 centimeters, the mushroom stops the zombie ant. At this height, the ideal temperature and humidity for mushroom growth! The ant’s jaws are tightly holding onto the leaf all this time.
At the end, a long “stalk” appears from the ant’s body, which eventually turns into a capsule full of fungal spores. And since zombie ants usually climb the plants closest to the anthill, the spores will fall directly on the other inhabitants of the colony and turn them into a bunch of zombies! Wow! Mushroom zombies — isn’t it creepy?
The body of an 11-meter whale was found in the Amazon forests in Brazil, near the mouth of the Amazon River. They don’t know exactly what happened to the whale. But the forest is not a place for a whale, that’s for sure. The carcass was found on the island of Marajo, near the beach of Araruna, 15 meters from the water. Local authorities say whales in this area at this time of year are quite rare. According to experts, the whale weighed as much as 10 tons and was 8 meters long! But local authorities said that the carcass was larger — 11 meters in length.
Specialists examined the whale and found no external injuries — so the reason why the whale died could not be established. Public opinion is divided: some believe that just a powerful tide threw the whale to the ground, others believe that the body of a drowned whale was pulled onto land by people. What do you think is more like the truth?
For hundreds of years, Peruvians have kept the legend of a river in the Amazon, so hot that you can’t get out of it alive. Legend has it that the Spanish conquistadors made a big mistake by coming to the Amazon rain forests in search of gold. The few survivors told scary stories about poisonous waters, snakes and a boiling river. And there is not a drop of fiction in this! Since childhood, the Peruvian geologist Address Ruzo has been interested in this topic. But he decided to check whether such a river really exists only while working on his doctoral dissertation. The man was studying ways to use geothermal energy.
Chemical studies have shown that a boiling river is actually rainwater. Ruzo believes that the boiling process begins upstream, maybe even in the Andean Mountains. He also believes that the water heats up due to the fracture of the earth’s crust, thermal waters and steam rise from a depth of several kilometers. Then the heated waters fall into the Amazon — and the boiling river is ready. This is just a small part of a huge hydrothermal process. And there are no analogues on Earth of this river.