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Ophiocordyceps Camponoti-balzani
''Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani'' is a species of fungus that parasitizes insect hosts of the order Hymenoptera, primarily ants. It was first isolated from Viçosa, Minas Gerais (Atlantic Forest), on '' Camponotus balzani''. This species was formerly thought to be ''Ophiocordyceps unilateralis'', which has subsequently been divided into four species. ''O. camponoti-balzani'' infects ants, and eventually kills the hosts after they move to an ideal location for the fungus to spread its spores. This has earned the species names such as “zombie fungus”, given the fungus has been observed to cause its hosts to bite hard into the substrate it stands on, so that the fungus can then stably grow. Description This species mycelium is a chocolate brown colour, and forms aggregations around the insects' joints, especially on legs and antennae. Its stromatal morphology is similar to '' O. camponoti-rufipedis'', but its fertile region is dark brown when mature. Its ascomata are semi- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasitism
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as Armillaria mellea, honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the Orobanchaceae, broomrapes. There are six major parasitic Behavioral ecology#Evolutionarily stable strategy, strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), wikt:trophic, trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), Disease vector, vector-transmitted paras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism (complete metamorphosis)—that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature. Etymology The name Hymenoptera refers to the wings of the insects, but the original derivation is ambiguous. All references agree that the derivation involves the Ancient Greek πτερόν (''pteron'') for wing. The Ancient Greek ὑμήν (''hymen'') for membrane provides a plausible etymology for the term because species in this order have membranous wings. However, a key characteristic of this order is that the hindwings are co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viçosa, Minas Gerais
Viçosa is a Brazilian municipality in the state of Minas Gerais. Its population was estimated at 79,910 inhabitants. It is a city essentially oriented to education, with emphasis on the Federal University of Viçosa, founded in 1926 by the president of the Republic Artur da Silva Bernardes, who was born in Viçosa. It also possesses other private higher education institutions, emphasizing the educational character of the city. It is a city that attracts many people from Brazil and other countries due to scientific and academic events that take place around the university, totaling approximately 500 annual events. History Foundation Before colonization, the Piranga River basin region was inhabited by the indigenous Aimoré and Purí people, who with the Tamoios belonged to the Tupi group. Although traversed by some '' bandeirantes'' in the seventeenth century, it remained occupied by natives until then. The white European settlement of the region began in the eig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Forest
The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and the Misiones Province of Argentina, where the region is known as Selva Misionera. The Atlantic Forest has ecoregions within the following biome categories: seasonal moist and dry broad-leaf tropical forests, tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, and mangrove forests. The Atlantic Forest is characterized by a high biodiversity and endemism. It was the first environment that the Portuguese colonists encountered over 500 years ago, when it was thought to have had an area of , and stretching an unknown distance inland, making it, back then, the second largest rainforest on the planet, only behind the Amazon rainforest. Over 85% of the original area has been deforested, threatening many plant and animal species with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis
''Ophiocordyceps unilateralis'', commonly known as zombie-ant fungus, is an insect-pathogenic fungus, discovered by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859, and currently found predominantly in tropical forest ecosystems. ''O. unilateralis'' infects ants of the tribe Camponotini, with the full pathogenesis being characterized by alteration of the behavioral patterns of the infected ant. Infected hosts leave their canopy nests and foraging trails for the forest floor, an area with a temperature and humidity suitable for fungal growth; they then use their mandibles to attach themselves to a major vein on the underside of a leaf, where the host remains after its eventual death. The process leading to mortality takes 4–10 days, and includes a reproductive stage where fruiting bodies grow from the ant's head, rupturing to release the fungus's spores. ''O. unilateralis'' is, in turn, also susceptible to fungal infection itself, an occurrence that can limit its impa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mycelium
Mycelium (plural mycelia) is a root-like structure of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. Fungal colonies composed of mycelium are found in and on soil and many other substrates. A typical single spore germinates into a monokaryotic mycelium, which cannot reproduce sexually; when two compatible monokaryotic mycelia join and form a dikaryotic mycelium, that mycelium may form fruiting bodies such as mushrooms. A mycelium may be minute, forming a colony that is too small to see, or may grow to span thousands of acres as in '' Armillaria''. Through the mycelium, a fungus absorbs nutrients from its environment. It does this in a two-stage process. First, the hyphae secrete enzymes onto or into the food source, which break down biological polymers into smaller units such as monomers. These monomers are then absorbed into the mycelium by facilitated diffusion and active transport. Mycelia are vital in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for their role ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antenna (biology)
Antennae ( antenna), sometimes referred to as "feelers", are paired appendages used for Sensory system, sensing in arthropods. Antennae are connected to the first one or two Segmentation (biology), segments of the arthropod head. They vary widely in form but are always made of one or more jointed segments. While they are typically sensory organs, the exact nature of what they sense and how they sense it is not the same in all groups. Functions may variously include sensing tactition, touch, air motion, heat, vibration (sound), and especially insect olfaction, smell or gustation, taste. Antennae are sometimes modified for other purposes, such as mating, brooding, swimming, and even anchoring the arthropod to a substrate (biology), substrate. Larval arthropods have antennae that differ from those of the adult. Many crustaceans, for example, have free-swimming larvae that use their antennae for swimming. Antennae can also locate other group members if the insect lives in a group, lik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stromata
The ''Stromata'' ( el, Στρώματα), a mistake for ''Stromateis'' (Στρωματεῖς, "Patchwork," i.e., ''Miscellanies''), attributed to Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215), is the third of a trilogy of works regarding the Christian life. The oldest extant manuscripts date to the eleventh century. The work is titled ''Stromateis'' ("patchwork”) because it deals with such a variety of matters. It goes further than its two predecessors and aims at the perfection of the Christian life by initiation into complete knowledge. It attempts, on the basis of Scripture and tradition, to give such an account of the Christian faith as shall answer all the demands of learned men, and conduct the student into the innermost realities of his belief. The contents of the ''Stromateis'', as its title suggests, are miscellaneous. Its place in the trilogy is disputed – Clement initially intended to write the ''Didascalus'', a work which would complement the practical guidance of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ophiocordyceps Camponoti-rufipedis
''Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis'' is a species of fungus that parasitizes insect hosts, in particular members of the order Hymenoptera. It was first isolated from Viçosa, Minas Gerais, at an altitude of on '' Camponotus rufipes''. Description This species' mycelium is densely produced from all of its orifices and sutures; it is initially a silky white, becoming a ginger colour. Its stromata is single, produced from a dorsal pronotum measuring between and in length, which is cylindrical, dark brown at its base, and pinkish in the fertile upper part. The ascomata are immersed and flask-shaped, measuring up to , including a short ostiole. Its asci are 8-spore In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, ...d, hyaline and cylindrical, while the ascospores are multiserri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ascomata
An ascocarp, or ascoma (), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. Ascocarps are most commonly bowl-shaped (apothecia) but may take on a spherical or flask-like form that has a pore opening to release spores (perithecia) or no opening (cleistothecia). Classification The ascocarp is classified according to its placement (in ways not fundamental to the basic taxonomy). It is called ''epigeous'' if it grows above ground, as with the morels, while underground ascocarps, such as truffles, are termed ''hypogeous''. The structure enclosing the hymenium is divided into the types described below (apothecium, cleistothecium, etc.) and this character ''is'' important for the taxonomic classification of the fungus. Apothecia can be relatively large and fleshy, whereas the others are microscopic—about the size of flecks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erumpent
Magical creatures are an aspect of the fictional Wizarding World contained in the ''Harry Potter'' series and connected media, all created by British author J. K. Rowling. Throughout the seven main books of the series, Harry and his friends encounter many of these creatures on their adventures in Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest, or other locations throughout the Wizarding World. In addition, students learn to take care of creatures such as hippogriffs and unicorns in the Care of Magical Creatures class at Hogwarts. Rowling has also written ''Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'', a guide to the magical beasts found in the series, and based on the fictional textbook of the same name written by Newt Scamander and used by students at Hogwarts. Many of these creatures are derived primarily from Greek mythology and other folklore, namely British and Scandinavian folklore. Many of the legends surrounding these mythical creatures are also incorporated in the books. "Children .. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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