 The ant dies after a couple of days and hair-like things start to grow out of the body. A few days later, there's a thick brown coat around it and a stake erupts from the ant's body and grows. Next thing, it releases spores. And because the ant is high up, the spores can fall down to different places to infect other ants. So Godfred, that's the reason why it climbed up in the first place.