A hideous photograph of a “zombie fungus” consuming a spider alive was released Friday.
Expert wildlife photographer and evolutionary biologist Roberto Garcia-Roa captured the incredibly rare event and submitted it to the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. The journal’s 2023 competition chose the image as the runner-up for the best image in the “plants and fungi” category, and it’s easy to see why.
WARNING: this thing is the stuff of nightmares.
Horrifying photo captures moment parasitic fungus bursts from huge spider’s body https://t.co/ZMWWKZhzxF
— Live Science (@LiveScience) August 18, 2023
Fans of the hit HBO show “Last Of Us” will recognize the horrific affliction as a type of parasitic fungus that consumes and controls its host from the inside out.
“While it is not uncommon to encounter insects parasitised by ‘zombie’ fungi in the wild, it is a rarity to witness large spiders succumbing to these fungal conquerors. In the jungle, near a stream, lies the remains of a conquest shaped by thousands of years of evolution,” Garcia-Roa told the journal.
There are other species of parasitic fungus like the one captured by Garcia-Roa. Most of them are part of the Cordycipitaceae and Ophiocordycipitaceae families, LiveScience noted. (RELATED: ‘The Last Of Us’ Episode 3 Explains How The End Of The World Happened In 3 Days, And It’s Terrifying)
While it’s believed these fungi can’t survive in human hosts, it’s unclear how our ever-evolving planet will influence the spread into the future. It’s unclear what type of spider or fungus Garcia-Roa captured, but let’s hope whatever it never spreads to us.