Question: Metaphorically Speaking, If there was a Zombie Apocolypse, most books/movies show people hunting animals and eating them. My theory is that animals would get infected and would become inedible. What's your opinion on this?
Keywords: apocalypse, endofworld, film, tv, zombie
Hey mattscientist, cool question, very well thought out! Most movies and people don’t show this level of though – although I Am Legend showed zombie dogs, but not zombie deer? Weird.
Let’s say the zombie apocalypse cam from a virus or parasite like in the movies. If this is the case it could really go either way. There are plenty of viruses and parasites that can infect all sorts of animals and humans in the same way. But there are also some that can only infect humans, or only certain species of animals. It is probably more likely that what would happen would be that the infectious zombie bug would infect humans and some other species, but not all. So humans might end up hunting onscure animals we normally wouldn’t eat that aren’t infected!
You could also say that over time, especially with a virus, if there are animals that aren’t infected, the virus could mutate and evolve to infect them as well, especially if there is an evolutionary advantage for the virus to do this. Then we’d be in big trouble! Imagine zombie birds swooping from the skies to get us as well! Nowhere would be safe!
That’s my take on it! Thanks for a really creative question!
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Ooh, that’s an awesome question, mattscientist!
I love zombie movies, and you’re totally right, they usually don’t show whether the animals get infected…
I think if enough time passed, the disease that was causing the zombification would eventually evolve to affect animals too. I reckon the safest food source would be to eat veggies and maybe insects! (Some insects are super good for you, one day we’ll all be having bugs for dinner I think!)
BUT if the zombieness was spreading through black magic instead of disease (maybe voodoo curses or even alien technology) it might just be targeted at humans, in which case, grab a crossbow and catch a deer!
Now I’m hungry.
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Matt this question did my head in! You are killing man! I just spend 40minutes readig about zombies and viruses and this is what I came up with!
First of all zombies are REAL! There are several real-life diseases that could make you act like a zombie. For example sleeping sickness is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei and transmitted by the tsetse fly in Africa. Zombies don’t sleep either! Zombie patients become irritable, their daily lives are not the same, their speech is slurred and they stop eating and worst of all is that they stay awake during the day and they stay in a zombie coma and eventually die. Message here, the tsetse fly is a zombie carrier!!! Watch out for that fly!!! Don’t eat it!
Next zombie state is BRAINS! Here you and I will look at rabies! Rabies is a massive inflammation of the brain passed onto us from rabies infected animals like dogs or even fruit bats here in Australia. The brain is totally taken over by the rabies and in some cases one of the symptoms that the patients experience is a zombie hunger for brains. Over 50,000 people die annually from rabies, and most of these these deaths occur in Asia and Africa. So lesson here for me is that dogs and fruit bats are zombie animals, if i eat it, I’ll turn into a zombie! :S
Want to look at another symptom with me? Read on! Necrosis! Skin rotting and tissue death! A patient with necrotic tissue is maybe the closest equivalent to the rotting skin of a zombie. A patient suffering from necrosis technically is partially dead, albeit still very much alive. Important areas (the brain, the heart, and the rest of the vital organs) that still alive and kicking but the skin looks horrible! Some necrosis, can be caused by flesh-eating bacteria! As zombies our immune system is compromised and if animals or even ourselves still have flesh eating bacteria on us, prognosis isn’t good! Necrosis becomes real!!!
So my take on it is: stay away from zombie animals! I think you are right, I wouldn’t want to eat or touch zombie animals!
and honestly you got me shaking in my seat because zombies are real! I never knew how real until now ….woah! O.O
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It would depend on how the zombie apocalypse was started! Some viruses only infect one type of animal so human zombies should be fine to eat them nom nom nom!
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