While exploring the lush, humid paths of the city park in Puyo, Ecuador, I spotted a large insect clinging to a tree. It was completely motionless, creating a perfect, eerie stillness that made it incredibly easy to photograph. It was only later, when I zoomed in to inspect the macro shots, that the chilling truth revealed itself: strange, polypoid growths were erupting out of its body. Though it is difficult to identify the host with absolute certainty, it appears to be a large cricket that fell victim to a parasitic Ophiocordyceps fungus. This notorious “zombie fungus” slowly invades the insect’s internal tissues, eventually hijacking its nervous system. In a final act of mind control, it compels the doomed host to climb to an elevated vantage point and lock itself in place. Once the insect dies, the fruiting bodies burst through the exoskeleton, raining spores down from above to infect the next unsuspecting generation.