Researchers have found a new species of fungus from the Cordycipitaceae family in the Atlantic Forest of Rio de Janeiro
The new type of parasitic fungus similar to Cordyceps from the game and the TV series”The Last of Us“, Was called Purpureocillium aff. atypical, but has yet to be catalogued. The research was conducted by scientists from the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew and the New York Botanical Garden.
The new mushroom was discovered in November in the Atlantic Forest during a biodiversity documentation and search for new species in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian mycologist João Paulo Machado de Araújo is one of the leaders of the research and has given an interview to the R7 portal with new details of the discovery.
The purple-toned species has been identified as a parasite of a trapdoor spider. Grab the already lifeless animal – something other than the Cordyceps, which infects and controls the host while still alive, as evidenced in the television hit.
- In The Last of Us,” the fungus mutates and becomes capable of infecting and controlling the brains of humans, turning them into deadly creatures.
- Experts say the new species belongs to the same family Cordycipitaceaebut of different kinds. Currently, the genus Purpureocillium it has only six officially described mushroom species.
“By finding the purple mushroom, which is super unusual to have that color, just by looking at it, I could already identify it. And I also knew that there were only six species described, so one would definitely be new,” Araújo told the R7 portal.
According to the researcher, the parasitic fungal species also infect 13 orders of insects, in addition to spiders.
“Butterfly beetles, ladybugs, hemiptera, stick insects, flies, mosquitoes, it’s an infinity. It is very diverse and the more we study these fungi, the more we see that other organisms are also infected with them,” he says.
The discovery of the new species should now open deeper paths.
“We better understand the biodiversity and we can look at the new species from an evolutionary perspective: how did these fungi evolve? How do spiders infect? How they infect the eyeballs of people with impaired immunity. So it’s a mushroom that has a great ecological variety,” reports Araújo.
Source: Terra
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