{"id":4572,"date":"2025-02-07T18:58:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T18:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/a-fungus-that-turns-spiders-into-zombies-is-a-discovery-to-haunt-your-nightmares\/"},"modified":"2025-02-07T18:58:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T18:58:51","slug":"a-fungus-that-turns-spiders-into-zombies-is-a-discovery-to-haunt-your-nightmares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/a-fungus-that-turns-spiders-into-zombies-is-a-discovery-to-haunt-your-nightmares\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fungus That Turns Spiders Into Zombies Is a Discovery to Haunt Your Nightmares"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An abandoned gunpowder <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/abandoned_ni\/reel\/CwaJuMlo_tc\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">storage shed<\/a> pokes out from a small mound of earth in what\u2019s now a nature preserve in Northern Ireland. It is the perfect place for a spider: semi-subterranean, cool and dark. But in 2021, a crew working on <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p012msk2\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a BBC nature program<\/a> found more than an average arachnid lurking there. They spotted a dead spider with a lacy white fungus erupting from its body.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The fungus, scientists announced in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fuse-journal.org\/images\/Issues\/Vol15Art7.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a paper published last month in the journal Fungal Systematics and Evolution<\/a>, is a newly discovered species that spreads its spore by hijacking a spider and turning the unlucky arachnid into a zombie. This evolutionary strategy has been made famous by the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/10\/24\/science\/ant-zombies-fungus.html#:~:text=The%20fungus%2C%20called%20Ophiocordyceps%2C%20feeds,of%20the%20ant's%20body%20mass.\" title=\"\">zombie ant fungus Ophiocordyceps<\/a>, which inspired the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/01\/11\/arts\/television\/the-last-of-us-hbo.html\" title=\"\">video game<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/01\/12\/arts\/television\/the-last-of-us-review.html\" title=\"\">HBO show \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d<\/a> This spider version is only distantly related to that fungus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Volunteers at the Castle Espie Wetland Centre near Belfast were assisting the BBC filmmakers when they noticed the infected spider. Pictures of the specimen made their way to Harry Evans, an emeritus fellow at CAB International, a nonprofit organization focusing on agricultural and environmental research. \u201cI posited that it was an unknown or unusual species and requested the specimen once the filming had finished,\u201d Dr. Evans, an author of the paper, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When the BBC program aired, Tim Fogg, a cave explorer, reached out to Dr. Evans to say that he had observed a similar fungus in Irish caves. Each of the five infected spiders Mr. Fogg collected was engulfed by a tiny, tangled thicket of fungi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Jo\u00e3o Ara\u00fajo, an author of the paper and a curator of mycology at the Denmark Natural History Museum, said he and his colleagues believe that when a spore lands on a spider, the fungus sprouts a root-like structure called a germ tube that drills into the arachnid\u2019s exoskeleton. Once inside, the fungus buds and multiplies, Dr. Ara\u00fajo said, \u201ctaking over basically almost the entire body of the spider.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like their counterpart at the Belfast preserve, the spiders observed by Mr. Fogg had crawled out in the open, near the cave entrances, before dying. This positioning helps the fungus\u2019s parasitic agenda: catching air currents to spread its spores as efficiently as possible, Dr. Ara\u00fajo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Evans proposed naming the fungus Gibellula attenboroughii, in honor of the naturalist and broadcaster <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/25\/arts\/television\/david-attenborough-perfect-planet.html\" title=\"\">Sir David Attenborough<\/a>. Mr. Attenborough has played an important role in the success of the BBC Studios Natural History Unit and thus indirectly helped lead to the new fungal species\u2019s discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Charissa de Bekker, a molecular ecologist at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands who was not involved with the study, said that she was inspired to study zombie fungi by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Mr. Attenborough\u2019s \u201cPlanet Earth\u201d series<\/a>, and that naming this species after him was \u201ca great tribute,\u201d especially because it revealed something important about arachnids and the world they inhabit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSpiders are very misunderstood creatures,\u201d Dr. de Bekker said. \u201cThey\u2019re both predators and being predated upon, so they\u2019re key elements in food webs. Understanding what parasites they get and what infections they get might give us a better understanding of these ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Ara\u00fajo said it\u2019s important to learn \u201cwho these fungi are, which insects and arthropods they infect, how they evolve, where they come from.\u201d Zombie fungi could help control agricultural pests, he said, and a chemical produced by a relative of Ophiocordyceps is already used in drugs to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese are nature\u2019s chemists and the only source of novel antibiotics and other medicines for the future,\u201d Dr. Evans said. \u201cWe must find ways of identifying these before more natural ecosystems disappear along with the fungi.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/07\/science\/spiders-fungus-zombies-bbc.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An abandoned gunpowder storage shed pokes out from a small mound of earth in what\u2019s now a nature preserve in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[1936,1937,1939,1935,1702,1940,1932,1938,1934,268,1933,188],"class_list":["post-4572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-attenborough","tag-belfast-northern-ireland","tag-british-broadcasting-corp","tag-caves-and-caverns","tag-david","tag-fungal-systematics-and-evolution-journal","tag-fungi","tag-northern-ireland","tag-parasites","tag-research","tag-spiders","tag-your-feed-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Fungus That Turns Spiders Into Zombies Is a Discovery to Haunt Your Nightmares - World News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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