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Death by Fungus


Death by Fungus
Photo Information
Copyright: Kathleen Shepherd (Kathleen) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 378 W: 103 N: 68] (232)
Genre: Fungi
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2002-04
Categories: Fungi
Details: Tripod: Yes
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2007-05-27 4:47
Viewed: 1093
Points: 6
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
Beauvieria bassiana . Sugar Icing Fungus.
Insects with white patches coming from the softer areas between their body plates have been attacked by the sugar icing fungus slowly feeding off their internal organs.
Sugar Icing Fungus, Beauvieria bassiana found in mixed forests is a member of the Clavicipitaceae family that grow by penetrating and infecting insect larvae or mature insects with their spores. These spores germinate and grow by slowly feeding on the insect’s internal organs until the insect dies, at which time they then produces spore bearing structures.
In this photo I have a Weta, Hemideina sp, a tree weta. I believe it to be this species of weta because of its shape, but with all the fungus over it the identification of the head is a bit hard. The weta has died while moving around under the banks in native forest.
Canon EOS 1-N, 100mm macro lens, slide film. It was very dark under the bank and I remember it being long shutter speeds for max DOF f/32. Cable release & tripod. Slide scanned in with CanoScan FS 4000US.

So glad we are not on the food chain of this fungus.
LordPotty, angybone has marked this note useful
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Critiques [Translate]

Wow Kathleen,
This is a very interesting image.
I've seen bugs covered in this fungus, but the weta you have photographed is a brilliant specimen.
No mistaking this bug at all.
I'm not so sure about humans not being on this fungus' food chain. Once we're buried ... who knows ?

Fascinating!!!!
IT's actually quite beautiful. That's one of the things I love TN - we have the opportunity to see the beauty in things most people either overlook or fail to understand.

I have never seen a weta taken this way and I thought a stick insect was interesting. Well photographed with good exposure against the dark back ground.

Clive

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