DAVID R. DÍAZ-GUEVARA
A newly identified spider disguises itself as a dead spider being consumed by a parasitic fungus, fooling predators and prey alike.
The species, formally named Taczanowskia waska, mimics the fruiting body of the Gibellula fungus, a real genus known to infect and erupt from spider corpses.
The resemblance is striking enough that the conservationist who first spotted it, Alexander Bentley, assumed it was a genuine infected corpse until it started moving.
Bentley uploaded photos to the citizen science platform iNaturalist, where users quickly flagged it as something unusual. An international team led by biologist David Ricardo Díaz-Guevara then formally classified the species and published their findings in the journal Zootaxa.
The T. waska fools predators by looking like it is already dead
According to Vice, the spider uses pale coloration and elongated spindly structures on its abdomen to replicate the appearance of a fungal eruption.
To sell the illusion, it stays completely motionless on the undersides of leaves, exactly where real Gibellula fungi grow to shield themselves from heavy rain.
Unlike most spiders in the orb-weaver family, T. waska does not spin webs. Instead it uses the camouflage to hide from predators while waiting to snatch passing insects out of the air with its front legs.
It is the first documented case of any spider mimicking a fungus that specifically targets its own kind, making it one of the more unsettling discoveries in recent memory.
The real-world zombie fungus that inspired The Last of Us is very much real. We have a full breakdown of how the Cordyceps infection works in the show and game and why scientists say a human version is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
