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A piece of 99 million -year -old Amber has revealed a shocking vision. It is a fly with a zombie fungus that is growing from its head. Another fossil in the same amber shows a young ant infected with uniform fungus. Ant and fly were then trapped in the sticky tree sap which became Amber.
These are one of the oldest known examples of fungi controlling fungi, killing them in this process. Chinese researchers study fossils using microscope and 3D scans.
Yuhui Jhuang, the lead author of Yunnan University, said that it helps to understand the ancient relationships between such rare fungi and insects.
“Overall, both these fossils are very rare, between at least thousands of amber samples that we have seen, and only some have preserved a symbiotic relationship between fungi and insects,” CNN quoted Zuang.
“The discovery of these two fossils suggests that terrestrial ecosystems were already very complex, and in particular, ophiocordyceps, especially, may have begun to act as ‘predators’ of pests in the crates period, regulating the population of some groups,” said Jhuang.
Some fungi is called “zombie-ANT fungi” because they can control the behavior of ants to spread their spores. This strange idea inspired video games and TV series The Last of As -As.
Scientists believe that fungi found in a fossil ant may be an early form of today’s zombie-ANT fungi. These fungi controlled the body’s body before killing it.
Such ancient parasitic fungi are very rare, so much is not known about their history. Experts say that these fungi played a big role in shaping life on earth.
Even though Amber shows us many hidden species, we still see a small portion of the entire picture. Each insect probably took several unseen parasites, fungi or bacteria.
New fossil search
The new fossil discovery suggests that the fungi was also present about 99 million years ago during the dinosaur era, and had already attacked insects. According to experts, they would then help control the pest population back.
Today, such fungi still infects many insects such as ants, flies and beetles. Scientists say that the fungus enters the body’s body through a weak place and reaches its brain to control its functions.
Interestingly, flies are rarely affected today, which forms a fossil of an infected fly that is very rare and exciting for researchers.
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