The strange disease that had been killing off North American bats, White Nose Syndrome, is actually a fungus, according to Scientific American. Apparently this is some kind of fungus that has come in from Europe, where the bats deal with it just fine. Unfortunately, the North American bats cannot, and it is killing them off in large numbers.
I don’t know much more about this than the occasional magazine article, and the link above will give better information that I will, but the whole purpose of du jour Brain Know? was originally to show where my writing ideas come from. So, here goes…
This White Nose Syndrome fungus article compares this situation to the plight of the amphibians and the honeybees, indicating that all three may be caused by fungus and climate change. It also points out that fungi are particularly dangerous as “Fungal pathogens have the unique capacity to drive host populations to extinction because of their ability to survive in host-free environments.” (Hoy! So many sources to try to credit with links here! Please give the original authors the respect they deserve!)
Well, this set me to thinking about zombies. Right? I know, I’m a little slow, you were there at the title and I just caught up. Specifically, it reminded me of zombie ants. Seriously. If you haven’t heard about this, go there now. I’ll wait.
Welcome back! Now add to that the idea of panspermia -the seeds of life coming through space to new places. Voilà! I have the background story for my Zombie story and evidence to back it up (semi-)plausibly.
Or you don’t have to go with zombies at all. You could go with a natural disaster idea based on climate change and out of control fungi. It could happen. Maybe it is happening already…