Mushroom-Zombies, slave insects, is not just a horror story about modern public culture. Two small, frozen fossils in Amber Burma, proving that these parasites hunted ants and flies nearly 100 million years ago on the territory of modern Myanmar.
Two types of mushrooms, recently described in Proceedings of the Royal Association B: Biology Science– As you can see, this cruel strategy has been practiced since ancient times.
In the golden age of dinosaurs
The amber from the Khukauung valley holds the doll with an ant with a thin mushroom process and a fly, stabbed by a second, similar to a shell of a stroma. The position of the growth of mushrooms repeats the method in which their modern relatives sprout from soft joints after the last sigh of the owner.
Biologists restored the picture and thought that the ants clearly pulled out of the nest before infection was sprayed. Social insects are often isolated from relatives who are sick, and such an infection prevention has existed in the period of white chalk.
It was surprising that some strange things of the modern natural world were in the golden age of dinosaurs, Professor Edmund Yashtubovsky said from London Museum of Natural Sciences.
Researchers have calculated the context of ordinary peritoneal – micro chamber where sexual disputes – on fossils. Their position is connected by an ancient limb with modern Ophiocordyceps, although these lines have scattered more than 130 million years ago.
The reproductive organs of fossil pathogens are rarely preserved. This makes each new discovery with a potential window in the ecosystem of diseases in the distant past.
What is the “zombie” mushroom
Ophiocordyceps dispute through the exoskeleton of a living insect and are shown in its blood -soluble. The chemical signal of the mushroom directed the victim to a place where the wind contributed maximum to the spread of the dispute brought after death.
Research on genes of species affecting ants shows dozens of protein encoding genes similar to Enterotoxin. This shows that mushrooms are rebuilding muscles and nerves, using techniques similar to bacteria that violate the work of mammals.
As infections develop, genes related to serotonin and dopamine music of ants are activated or inhibited, coinciding with the time of deadly arrest.
Amber is like a natural time capsule
Wooden plastic seals soft body for a few minutes and hard into amber, against water, oxygen and the decomposition of microorganisms. This closed protection allows researchers to study insect epidermis along with thinner fungi than human hair.
Kachinsky Amber is famous for its transparency, because it is used by Hoan Kim workers. The truttious pieces are often thrown by Cringers – but in them, the best biological burials can be hidden. Therefore, researchers screen the landfill to search for missed samples and do not stimulate new prey.
Because plastic freezing in layers, one piece can maintain moments spaced for hours. Such classes help dating biological events with extraordinary precision, when the deposit is surrounded by volcanic ash mines.
The key to insect evolution
The comparative surgery and the molecular clock placed Paleophiocordyceps into a branch separated from modern mushroom ants in the beginning of the creta-period at the time of flowering began to rebuild food chains on the ground.
The analysis of the change of the host in the study shows the possibility of mushrooms from bugs to flies and ants, reflecting the spread of pollination and social insects. Such dance moves emphasize as the fate of the parasite is connected to the fate of its favorite sacrifice.
The beetle has been developed in decaying wood – a fairly humid environment for mushroom spores, and the appearance of flowers on the crown of the tree has led to the growth of new corners of ants. Mushrooms, we can say, according to its prey, adjust its tools to each type of epidermis.
Parasitic control may limit the increase in the explosives of the number of insects long before the bird or bat develops sophisticated appetite for six children.
This invisible regulating force can explain the relatively stable damage traces for grass -eating insects on the fossil leaves of the period of white chalk, although the strong increase in their diversity.
The story is repeated
The field research in Thailand shows that the cemeteries of infected ants are often found in places with humidity over 95%, which shows the necessity of parasites in a special microclimate.
The attack time is also very important. The ants are infected with the disease regularly clinging to the leaves at noon, which shows the synchronization of circus genes with the host's host.
When the corpse accumulates, each mushroom body will release millions of disputes, but the infection is still local. Clean the nest, remove corpses and discharge anti -bacterial drugs to prevent the whole colony destruction.
Laboratory tests with universal mushrooms show the compromise between the speed of murder and the number of disputes: The parasitic action is too fast to spread.
Why is it important
Insects have used fungal biological treatments against scratches and agricultural pests. This effective method does not require toxic chemicals – and the suggestions from fossil mushrooms will help improve it.
Climate models predict that more warm nights and rainfall changes will expand the habitat of many pathogens. Monitor their evolution to predict which groups of insects – useful or harmful – will be at risk.
