‘Zombie fungus’ bursts out of a lifeless fly in contest-winning picture



On a leaf within the Peruvian Amazon, a fly’s exoskeleton bursts open. Seven fungal stems emerge, flaring outward in a twisted bouquet. The fungus already took management of the fly’s thoughts and physique — now, it is time to discover a new sufferer.

This grim scene, which captures the simultaneous dying of a fly and lifetime of a so-called “zombie” fungus that preys upon bugs, is the grand prize winner on this 12 months’s BMC Ecology and Evolution Picture Competitors — the second annual picture contest hosted by the scientific journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. Roberto García-Roa, an evolutionary biologist and conservation photographer with the College of Valencia in Spain, snapped the profitable picture whereas endeavor analysis within the Tambopata Nationwide Reserve in southeastern Peru.