[BostonCard]

Biologically it is the fruiting body -- i.e. "mushroom" -- of a fungus that parasitized and eventually killed a caterpillar.

Yeah, the whole thing is a bit creepy...

In summer the airborne spores of a fungus known as cordyceps (or ophiocordyceps) sinensis invade the caterpillars of various species of ghost moth, a large pale insect that flits over the pastures at dusk. After grubs thus infected bury themselves in the soil to hibernate, they die; when winter comes they freeze. The warmth of spring activates the fungus, which grows to fill the caterpillar’s entire body, leaving only the outer skin. A spindly brown shoot of it emerges from the caterpillar’s head and pushes its way through the soil into daylight: just four or five centimetres—so tiny and often so widely separated from others that the keenest of eyes are needed to spot it.

Sound like an awful way for the poor caterpillar to go.

By the way, that was hardly the only interesting article in the special.

Here's one on the father of the NSA...

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-...ck-chamber

BC

[BostonCard]

Biologically it is the fruiting body -- i.e. "mushroom" -- of a fungus that parasitized and eventually killed a caterpillar.

Yeah, the whole thing is a bit creepy...

In summer the airborne spores of a fungus known as cordyceps (or ophiocordyceps) sinensis invade the caterpillars of various species of ghost moth, a large pale insect that flits over the pastures at dusk. After grubs thus infected bury themselves in the soil to hibernate, they die; when winter comes they freeze. The warmth of spring activates the fungus, which grows to fill the caterpillar’s entire body, leaving only the outer skin. A spindly brown shoot of it emerges from the caterpillar’s head and pushes its way through the soil into daylight: just four or five centimetres—so tiny and often so widely separated from others that the keenest of eyes are needed to spot it.

Sound like an awful way for the poor caterpillar to go.

By the way, that was hardly the only interesting article in the special.

Here's one on the father of the NSA...

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-...ck-chamber

BC