Most orchid species have a symbiotic relationship with the natural fungi found in their roots. The plants provide the fungi with sugar through photosynthesis and the orchids receive important water ...

While shooting a documentary at Castle Espie in Northern Ireland in 2021, a film crew came across a dead spider covered in a strange white substance in an abandoned gunpowder store. Now, scientists ...

(THE CONVERSATION) In the remote Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, a rare fungus grows inside dead caterpillars. In traditional Chinese medicine, this parasitic fungus is prized for its purported medicinal ...

And the cycle starts all over. The white stuff that engulfs these flies is a fungus called Entomophthora muscae—Entomophthora translates to “destroyer of insects.” It’s an obligate ...

In nature, there is a parasitic fungus that parasitizes ants, changing their behavior and forcing them to die in places that are convenient for spreading spores, and this was the theme of the ...

Becoming a parasite means that the orchids need to switch from their usual symbionts to different fungi that can handle the increased nutritional load. But appropriate fungi only occur when there ...

These spiked spheres enveloped by blue tendrils are pollen grains infected with parasitic fungi. Some evidence suggests that the fungus uses these pollen grains to travel to new locations and spread.

It’s not easy being green. Frogs, salamanders, and other amphibian species face extinction, due in part to a mysterious parasitic fungus. Now, two studies shed light on its spread and toll. The global ...