The Zombie Fungus that Eats Spiders | Parasitober

take a look at this picture what the hell right obviously this is a spider but what's all that white stuff here's a clip of the critter your observations are correct this is mold or fungus and it's causing the slow agonizing death of this spider this is not the cordyceps fungus which zombifies ants this isn't the fictional fungus which zombified humans in the last of us this is a different parasite which produces nature's most cursed marshmallows [Music] welcome one and all to my first annual october extravaganza halloween is my favorite holiday and fall is my favorite season the month when temperatures begin to ease up on our mammalian metabolisms and we get to enjoy a climate more suitable for humans before it plunges again into inhospitable extremes i'm of course coming from a seasonal perspective those living in places where seasons kind of just don't happen you have my utmost sympathy i've always wanted to do at least a halloween video each and every year since the beginning of my channel but i just never got around to it or never gave it much thought this year will be the start of a change to that rote formula i've toyed with a bunch of different ideas as to what to do for october a random assortment of horrifying natural phenomena cryptids or specific series going over a group of organisms are all good ideas at the time of writing this episode i've decided to make this october event involve parasites therefore i'm calling it parasitober this means each week's video will go over a different parasitic organism and how it parasitizes other organisms there may be some surprises along the way which deviate from attacks on specific video and i might just decide to wing it and pop out a few non-parasite related videos this month since i have a lot of video ideas laying around i might also figure out some time to throw together a non-spoopy video as well when it comes to parasites i'm willing to bet you might not have a fungus at the top of your list fungi are no joke for as sessile and plant-like they may seem at first glance they're pretty metal neither animal nor plant these organisms use the substance chitin in their cell walls this is unusual since plants use substances like cellulose pectin hemicellulose lignin subarin and kutin chemically a fungi's chitin is the same kind of chitin which makes up the exoskeleton of arthropods like insects crustaceans and arachnids as well as the beaks of cephalopods and radula of mollusks the chitin which provides structure to fungi's cell walls are probably a slightly different kind in practice though fungi come in all shapes sizes and colors you get forms such as the hard woody shelf fungi which produce super hard fruiting bodies which look like part of the wood they inhabit or the super colorful fruiting bodies of puffballs stink horns or morels among the mind-bogglingly massive kingdom fungi there are a group of fungi which radically depart from our layman understanding of what constitutes a simple mushroom pathogenic fungi are a group which i've taken to a parasitic or near-viral mode of life since there's more or less at least one example of a parasitic fungi in each known group of fungi it's unhelpful to consider them as a related group they've just adapted to similar lifestyles of slowly and agonizingly killing their hosts or in the best of circumstances causing irritation there's many thousands of species of parasitic fungi but i'm willing to bet the one you are most familiar with are the cordyceps unfortunately for those of us which tried to boil things down into the easiest most digestible bits of information cordyceps isn't a species but rather a genus of fungi containing around 400 species of fungi the fungus i want to zero in on today is a species which specifically targets the cellar spider in a vicious and agonizingly slow way n-gyodontium ara nerum this fungus belongs to a group of unrelated fungi tacked with the label entomopathogenic let's break that funky ass word up huh the word is made from the roots entomon meaning insect pathos meaning disease and genis meaning born of squish those silly old people words together and what do you got a disease which afflicts insects that's exactly how these fungi do infect the insect like a case of the flu since fungi are very much alive they attack an insect in a very different way to a virus or bacteriophage instead of going inside the host and hijacking the host's dna to replicate it allah a virus an entomopathogenic fungus usually attaches to the outside makes its way inside and then replicates itself by consuming the insides of the insect then depending on the species it just grows to fit the inside of the now dead insect until it bursts from the invertebrate seams free from the coffin it's made for itself the fungus produces any number of fruiting bodies and spreads its spores to start the vicious cycle anew some fungi evolved a way to take control of the host's mental faculties and force the host to do its bidding usually involving heading straight for the best place to multiply maybe i'll get to those kinds of fungi later on in paris october the cellar spider which may be more familiar to you as the daddy longleg is a lithe seven centimeter spider which inhabits the homes of pretty much every human on the planet they belong to a group of spiders called the fulca day the folkaday are weird they are adapted to live in caves but not like the animals that live in deep cut-off caves these spiders can still see with eyes and still retain pigmentation they're the kind of critters which might live near the mouth of a cave or somewhere not too far in it's this habitat that makes them sensitive to extremes they like it cool dark and moist in the wild they can survive well underneath logs and bark rocks and abandoned animal burrows this also makes them well adapted to live in human homes thanks to our cosmopolitan distribution we've brought them along for the worldwide ride they are mildly venomous and are responsible for controlling populations of brown recluse spiders overall a good presence just sending out positive vibes and staying out of people's business it just so happens the habitats they prefer are also the habitats which are perfect for the spread of a number of fungus species only one of these fungi actively attack and kill the poor cellar spider and giodantium aranerium is a fungus within the cortisoptaceae family making it related to both the zombifying cordyceps and ophiocordyceps species and the buvaria fungi which burst insects from the inside out in the case of these images which occasionally spread throughout reddit twitter and the like it is in fact a simple white mold which has attached itself to the exoskeleton of the spider and slowly eats away at the poor arthropod till death results the dancing marshmallows on thin toothpick legs are your average everyday cellar spider afflicted with the fungus the fungus doesn't immediately kill the spider either the spider remains alive while the mold grows over its body as the fungus eats through the spider's tissues it continues to retain some semblance of normalcy to its life moving around trying to eat some bugs and just chilling in its web in your basement this zombie-like state eventually comes to a painful end when the spider dies and the fungus has finished its job now the fungus must reproduce by sprouting fruiting bodies which spew out spores the spores ride the air currents to the next available spider host which is probably within a few feet of the previous host i know for a fact i've seen this white fuzz before but not on any half dead daddy longleg apparently this fungus can be found in soil and plant debris when digging through soil for bugs as a chilean i definitely remember seeing some white fuzz on plants and in the soil itself it's not the fungus which is part of the roots of plants but a white mat a fuzzy mold you may also find it indoors within paper textiles jute and painted walls the fungus which you might find not infecting spiders is a different species and some can even be dangerous to humans immunocompromised folks are susceptible to the fungus which can cause brain abscesses keratitis and native valve endocarditis basically inflammatory infections of the brain eyes and heart nasty though not the mushroom people fungus of the last of us nor the zombifying branches of cordyceps this nasty white mold is an amazing part of the natural world one of the checks on the population numbers of cellar spiders and creator of a natural horror show never would i have thought there was zombie ghost spider marshmallows found in nature what more could we find to creep ourselves out next stay tuned [Music] subscribe to consume some delicious contento like button scrape out a comment and blast the notification bell just so you're in the know with everything edge thanks for watching a very special thanks to my patrons dinosaur natty cat ed perez steve bradshaw spencer jacob spencer dana manchester clayton maxfield and tron if you'd like to support my channel and receive some extra content pledge to my patreon at any tier you want [Music] you

Channel: E.D.G.E

Views: 404,588

Rating: 4.9163899 out of 5

Keywords: paleontology, cryptozoology, science, education, fossils, EDGE, zoology, natural history, scicomm, geology, jurassic world, jurassic park, evolution, documentary, dinosaur, dinosaur game, rocks, crystals, stratigraphy, paleoart, spider, moldy, zombie, daddy longleg, ghost, halloween, fungus, fungi, basement, cellar spider, parasitic fungus

Id: HF6DgmtV6tE

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020