In my imagined world of Halahala, silent stories have occupied prime real estate since 2005. I think of them like music without lyrics, jazz-like in the experience. The Cordyception is another riff on Halahala’s staple theme of nature, sustainability and our obsession with a certain ladder. An Attenborough documentary led me to these marvellous fungi called Cordyceps and the rest is pure Halahala. The fungi infect and take over specific insect-hosts – body and mind – commanding them to a high vantage point for dispersing spores.
These aren't necessarily related to today's Ophiocordyceps fungus. Fungi that take control of arthropods and cause them to climb to disperse spores have convergently evolved more than once, including Arthrophaga myriapodina, which affects millipedes, and is in a different Division (the level above Class) from Ophiocordyceps.
Convergent evolution is more common than you might think. Trees, for example, have separately evolved at least 100 times.
I recently visited the national history museum and finally got a sense of the _weirdness_ of prehistoric trees. No bark, a green trunk (utilizing photosynthesis), tall like a palm tree. I'd love to see something like that now.
That sounds awesome! The oddest trees I have come across had big thorns like roses all over the trunk. Kind of hard to see because the trunk is so big, but you'd very quickly notice leaning against it.
That was in a botanical garden in Australia. No idea what they were or how common they are. Blew my mind.
Trees are barely a firm category of plant at all. It's basically just tall plants with woody stems. Plants can gain and lose woody stems without too much trouble (relatively speaking, over evolutionary time). So any time a plant species currently growing soft stems can benefit from being really tall, they have a good chance of evolving into "trees".
Zombie fungi pulled from amber is the makings of a movie ;)
https://bombaylitmag.com/contribution/the-cordyception/
In my imagined world of Halahala, silent stories have occupied prime real estate since 2005. I think of them like music without lyrics, jazz-like in the experience. The Cordyception is another riff on Halahala’s staple theme of nature, sustainability and our obsession with a certain ladder. An Attenborough documentary led me to these marvellous fungi called Cordyceps and the rest is pure Halahala. The fungi infect and take over specific insect-hosts – body and mind – commanding them to a high vantage point for dispersing spores.
I swear I drew this before the pandemic
—Appupen
"The BBC show we were ripping off (for 'The Last of Us') is Planet Earth, where they talked about the cordiceps fungus and how it affects insects."
https://venturebeat.com/2013/08/06/the-last-of-us-creators-i...
Next iteration: Jurassic Park + The Last of Us
The Velociraptor With All The Gifts.
Sounds like a more promising direction than what the Jurrasic Park franchise is doing currently.
These aren't necessarily related to today's Ophiocordyceps fungus. Fungi that take control of arthropods and cause them to climb to disperse spores have convergently evolved more than once, including Arthrophaga myriapodina, which affects millipedes, and is in a different Division (the level above Class) from Ophiocordyceps.
Convergent evolution is more common than you might think. Trees, for example, have separately evolved at least 100 times.
My favourite tree evolution thing is the forests in the Galapagos being evolved from dandelion seeds blown in on the wind from South America.
I recently visited the national history museum and finally got a sense of the _weirdness_ of prehistoric trees. No bark, a green trunk (utilizing photosynthesis), tall like a palm tree. I'd love to see something like that now.
> visited the national history museum
what nation?
That sounds awesome! The oddest trees I have come across had big thorns like roses all over the trunk. Kind of hard to see because the trunk is so big, but you'd very quickly notice leaning against it.
That was in a botanical garden in Australia. No idea what they were or how common they are. Blew my mind.
> Trees, for example, have separately evolved at least 100 times.
Can you explain more? Sounds interesting
Not OP, but:
https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-th...
Trees are barely a firm category of plant at all. It's basically just tall plants with woody stems. Plants can gain and lose woody stems without too much trouble (relatively speaking, over evolutionary time). So any time a plant species currently growing soft stems can benefit from being really tall, they have a good chance of evolving into "trees".
Fungi likely precedes the Dinos by 100's millions of years
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