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14h ago

Amber Fossils Push Origin of Insect-Manipulating Fungi Back to 133 Million Years

The finds reveal these ancient pathogens had already evolved complex mechanisms to hijack insect behavior for spore dispersal during the Cretaceous.

Image
a fly with a dark brown club-like shape protruding from its head, trapped in greenish-yellow amber.
Ecological reconstruction of Cretaceous insects and insect-pathogenic fungi. An ant is discarding an infected pupa, and an infected fly is located on a distant tree trunk. Image credit: Zhuang et al., doi: 10.1098/rspb.2025.0407.

Overview

  • Researchers identified Paleoophiocordyceps gerontoformicae infecting an ant pupa and P. ironomyiae infecting a fly in 99-million-year-old Kachin amber.
  • Morphological traits link both fossil species to modern Ophiocordyceps fungi, implying a continuous lineage across 100 million years.
  • Dating of the amber calibrates the emergence of entomopathogenic Ophiocordyceps fungi to about 133 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous.
  • Ancestral state reconstructions indicate initial parasitism of beetles followed by host shifts to moths, butterflies and ants as ecosystems evolved.
  • These amber specimens provide the oldest direct record of fungi manipulating insect hosts to spread spores.