In underground in New Zealand, under shed in England or even in an old water pipe in the United States, residents were faced with mummified spiderscovered with a worrying white crust. Their “execution”: a parasitic fungus that devours the spider’s body from the inside out, leaving behind a spectacular silhouette, the WSJ reports.
Anna Badams, a 54 -year -old Briton, recounts that she found hundreds of such samples of spider with the fungus in her garden in Southampton. “I’m not scared of spiders normally, but they scared me,” he tells the newspaper. She admits she lost her sleep for weeks.
The “fungus of Athenbor”
It was identified in Northern Ireland in 2021 by a team of scientists involving experts from the Danish Museum of Natural History and the Royal Botanical Gardens of KEW. In their researchthey named the fungus Gibellula Attenboroughii in honor of British natural David Atenboro. Since then it has been identified on many continents. “It consumes the host’s body from the inside, an instrument after the instrument,” explains the fungus of Joao Araouzo from the Danish Museum of Natural History.
According to scientists, infection can take several weeks, affecting the behavior of the spider and pushing it to abandon its natural environment to be placed under leaves or in more open spaces, thereby increasing the chances of spreading the fungus.
Without risk to man
The images of these “spider zombies” are directly reminiscent of the dystopian series The Last of Us, where a mutant fungus infects people. Scientists, however, reassure: “To infect man it would take millions of years of genetic development,” Araouzo said.
The phenomenon is not unique. Ants infected by the fungus Ophiocordyceps are forced to bite leaves before they die, a behavior known as “Death Grip”. The tzitsians, on the other hand, can be converted into “death salutes of death”, losing their belly but continuing to fly and transmit spores.
For some nature lovers, terror gives way to charm. Amateur physicist Ben Mitchell from Scotland describes his discovery as “an incredible cloud of old woman” stuck under a sheet. But for the majority of witnesses, these shrinking feet creatures look more like a nightmare.
Anna Badams remains categorical: “I don’t go back to my shed again. You never know if there are one or two left there. “