UK Nature and Environment

452 readers

129 users here now

General Instance Rules:

No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia.
No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies.
No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users.
Do not share intentionally false or misleading information.
Do not spam or abuse network features.

Community Specific Rules:

Keep posts UK-specific. There are other places on Lemmy to post articles which relate to global environmental issues (e.g. slrpnk.net).
Keep comments in English so that they can be appropriately moderated.

Note: Our temporary logo is from The Wildlife Trusts. We are not officially associated with them.

Our winter banner is a shot of Shotley marshes, Suffolk by GreyShuck.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

122

'Zombie' spiders infected by never-before-seen fungus discovered on grounds of destroyed Irish castle (www.livescience.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Scientists have discovered a never-before-seen mind-controlling fungus that creates spider "zombies" after it was stumbled upon in a Victorian gunpowder store on the grounds of a destroyed Irish castle.

The fluffy white fungus, similar to the zombie-ant fungus that inspired the "The Last of Us" video game and TV series, likely uses chemical signals to direct cave spiders out of their lairs and into the open. The fungus then kills the spiders and uses their corpses to release its spores, according to a new study.

Members of BBC's nature documentary TV series Winterwatch first discovered the fungus in a gunpowder storeroom at Castle Espie wetland reserve in Northern Ireland in 2021. Scientists analyzed the fungus and found it is new to science. They describe the species, named Gibellula attenboroughii to honor Sir David Attenborough, in a study published Friday (Jan. 24) in the journal Fungal Systematics and Evolution.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] thedeadwalking4242 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It’s a new species but this behavior has been seen in other fungus. See it all the time in basements in West Virginia

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 days ago

You may want to get in touch with the authors of the paper if you've seen a similar fungus, it's entirely possible it's also unknown or, at least, undocumented. A lot of species that people see 'all the time' turn out to be novel.

The paper, with contact details is here: https://www.fuse-journal.org/images/Issues/Vol15Art7.pdf