Parasites are hard enough for creationists to force-fit into their predetermined belief that all things were created by an omnibenevolent god, short of resorting to the near-blasphemous claim that 'Sin' somehow gave a rival creator unfettered access to their god's supposedly perfect creation in order to corrupt and destroy it. That rather undermines the claim of perfection in the first place, because a perfect creation, by definition, ought not to be corruptible.
But even harder for creationists to explain are parasites which, judged by their own favourite pseudo-scientific slogans — 'complex specified information' and 'irreducible complexity' — appear exquisitely adapted not merely to parasitise a living organism, but to consume it from within and then use its body as a platform for producing more parasites. In Pensoft's own popular description, these are "zombie" fungi: araneopathogenic fungi that parasitise spiders, mummify them, and then grow spore-producing structures from their bodies.
For example, newly identified spider-attacking fungi have recently been reported in two papers, published respectively in IMA Fungus and MycoKeys. Together, they add to the growing picture of a hidden diversity of highly specialised fungal parasites adapted to exploit spiders in different habitats.
The first is a new species of Purpureocillium fungus, belonging to the Purpureocillium atypicola group: Purpureocillium atlanticum. It was discovered in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, where it infects trapdoor spiders hidden in their burrows in the forest floor. The fungus covers the spider in cotton-white mycelium and eventually sends a purple fruiting structure up from the spider's cephalothorax, allowing spores to be released above the burrow. This discovery also shows that Purpureocillium atypicola, originally discovered in Japan in 1897 and thought to be a single species, is actually a global complex of multiple species.
The second paper reports three new species of Gibellula fungi — Gibellula pseudopigmentosa, Gibellula pseudosolita, and Gibellula sinensis — discovered on spiders in China and Laos. These fungi erupt from spider bodies in stalked, branch-like structures, and the species were distinguished from one another by differences in their reproductive structures, spore-forming bodies and phylogenetic relationships.
Other Examples of Parasite-Induced “Zombification”. The spider-attacking fungi described here are part of a much wider natural phenomenon: parasites that alter the body, behaviour or survival priorities of their hosts in ways that increase the parasite’s own chances of reproduction. The popular term “zombification” is dramatic, but it captures a real biological pattern — the host is made to serve the parasite’s life cycle rather than its own.The two papers, both published by Pensoft, are accompanied by a post in Pensoft Blog:
These examples are not evidence of benevolent design, but of evolutionary arms races. Natural selection can favour any heritable trait that improves a parasite’s transmission, even when the result is grotesque from the host’s point of view. In that sense, “zombie” parasites are exactly the sort of thing evolution predicts: opportunistic, wasteful, cruel and effective.
- Zombie-ant fungi — Ophiocordyceps species. These fungi infect ants, alter their behaviour, and cause them to climb vegetation and clamp onto leaves or twigs before dying. The fungus then grows a fruiting body from the ant, releasing spores from a position better suited to infecting more ants.
- The lancet liver fluke — Dicrocoelium dendriticum. This parasitic flatworm uses ants as an intermediate host. Infected ants are induced to climb vegetation and clamp themselves to grass stems, increasing the chance that they will be eaten by grazing mammals, where the parasite can complete the next stage of its life cycle.
- Horsehair worms — Nematomorpha. These long, thread-like worms develop inside insects such as crickets and grasshoppers. When mature, they induce the host to seek water — often fatal for the insect — allowing the adult worm to emerge into the aquatic environment it needs for reproduction.
- The “zombie snail” fluke — Leucochloridium. This trematode infects snails and produces colourful, pulsating broodsacs in the snail’s tentacles. The altered appearance, and changes in the snail’s behaviour, make the snail more conspicuous to birds, which then eat the infected tissues and spread the parasite.
- Toxoplasma gondii in rodents. This protozoan parasite can reduce rodents’ normal aversion to cat odour. Since Toxoplasma reproduces sexually in cats, making infected rodents more likely to be eaten by cats can benefit the parasite.
- The emerald cockroach wasp — Ampulex compressa. This parasitoid wasp delivers a precise sting into a cockroach’s nervous system, reducing its escape behaviour. The wasp then leads the subdued cockroach to a burrow, lays an egg on it, and leaves it as living food for the developing larva.
- Bodyguard caterpillars — Glyptapanteles wasps. Some parasitoid wasps lay eggs inside caterpillars. After the wasp larvae emerge and pupate, the still-living caterpillar remains nearby and behaves like a bodyguard, violently defending the wasp pupae before eventually dying.
[More examples of these parasites can be found in my book, The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is Not Good.]
Inside the Hidden World of Spider-Attacking Fungi
Newly discovered groups of “zombie” fungi have been found to mummify spiders and adapt their physical forms.
Deep within the humid leaf litter of China and the dense canopies of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, a silent ambush unfolds.
While we often think of spiders as the ultimate predators of the undergrowth, they have an arch-nemesis: araneopathogenic fungi. These “zombie” fungi are capable of parasitising spiders by hijacking their bodies and consuming them from the inside out.
Two studies published in the open-access peer-reviewed scientific journals MycoKeys and IMA Fungus, respectively, offer insight into this macabre world of spider assassins.
In Southeast Asia, researchers led by Chen-xin Chang of the Guizhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine have identified three new species of Gibellula fungi in China and Laos, which erupt from spiders in branch-like structures: Gibellula pseudopigmentosa, Gibellula pseudosolita, and Gibellula sinensis. These species are distinguished from one another by their slight variations in sexual reproductive structures and morphology. The below figure displays morphological plates, showing the three fungi species at both a macroscopic and microscopic level – notice their unique conidial heads and spore arrangements, coloured in blue.
To identify new species of spider-pathogenic fungi, the research group conducted field surveys in the forest leaf of China and Laos, where they collected specimens for detailed laboratory study. A combination of traditional microscopy and modern DNA sequencing rendered the discovery possible. The fungi’s sighting in Laos is particularly significant because it provides the first formal record of the Gibellula genus in the region.
This study – published in MycoKeys – therefore serves to fill a major distributional gap in Southeast Asia, as well as expand our understanding of the morphological diversity within this group of spider-pathogenic fungi.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, a study led by Joao Paulo Machado De Araújo of the University of Copenhagen and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, published in IMA Fungus, described a new species of Purpureocillium fungus belonging to the Purpureocillium atypicola group: Purpureocillium atlanticum. This fungus specifically targets trapdoor spiders inhabiting burrows on the forest floor, where it mummifies the host in white mycelia and subsequently emerges from its cephalothorax in the form of a purple fruiting body.
The discovery was notably featured in The Guardian, where it was placed alongside other unusual botanical and fungal discoveries compiled by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Purpureocillium atypicola was originally recorded in Japan by Yasuda (1894), and was thought to be a single species found all over the world for over a century. The discovery of the Purpureocillium atlanticum in Brazil is significant because it finally confirms that Purpureocillium atypicola is actually a global complex of many unique species.
To identify this new fungus, De Araújo’s research group used taxogenomics, a method which entailed bringing portable DNA sequencing gear directly into the Brazilian rainforest. By analysing the genetic code of the fungus and its environment immediately in the field, they were able to identify the specimen within just four days as opposed to waiting months for traditional lab results.
Both of these studies highlight the impressive diversity of spider-pathogenic fungi across distinct global environments. They additionally reveal the different evolutionary strategies of their respective species – while Purpureocillium atlanticum has adapted to infect underground trapdoor spiders by producing purple stalks to escape burrows, the Gibellula species represent the most diverse genus of spider parasites, found primarily in forest debris.
Phylogeny of hypocrealean fungi (A), highlighting the Purpureocillium atypicola complex (B) and morphology of the new species, P. atlanticum (C–G).Photo credit: Araújo et al.
As researchers continue to map these complex ecological networks, it becomes clear that preserving threatened biomes, including the Atlantic Forest and the jungles of Southeast Asia, is critical to expanding our knowledge in fungal taxonomy.
Publications:Chang, Chen-xin, Hui Chen, Chanhom Loinheuang, Yong-dong Dai, Yao Wang.(2026)
Morphological and Phylogenetic Analyses Reveal Three New Species of Gibellula (Cordycipitaceae, Hypocreales) from Spiders.
MycoKeys. 127, 135-154, https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.127.177871.
Araújo, João P. M., Natalia A. S. Przelomska, Rhian J. Smith, Elisandro R. Drechsler-Santos, Genivaldo Alves-Silva, Kelmer Martins-Cunha, Tsuyoshi Hosoya. 2025.
A New Species of Purpureocillium (Ophiocordycipitaceae) Fungus Parasitizing Trapdoor Spiders in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and Its Associated Microbiome Revealed Through in Situ “taxogenomics”.
IMA Fungus. 16 e168534. https://doi.org/10.3897/imafungus.16.168534.
So here we have yet another example of the natural world behaving exactly as though it is the product of amoral, undirected evolutionary processes, and not at all as though it was designed by an omnibenevolent intelligence. These fungi are not merely parasites in the loose sense of living at another organism’s expense; they are highly specialised organisms whose life cycles depend on infecting, killing, mummifying and then exploiting the bodies of spiders as spore-dispersal platforms.
For creationists, the difficulty is obvious. If complexity, specificity and interdependent function are supposed to be evidence of intelligent design, then these spider-attacking fungi would have to be counted as intelligently designed too. Their structures, host specialisation, reproductive strategies and ability to exploit spider bodies are not crude accidents; they are precise biological adaptations. The problem is that they are adaptations for doing something grotesque: turning another living animal into a fungal nursery.
Evolution has no difficulty explaining such things. Natural selection is not kind, merciful or forward-looking. It does not work towards moral improvement or ecological niceness. It simply preserves whatever variations improve survival and reproduction in a given environment. For a parasite, that can mean becoming better at finding hosts, evading their defences, consuming their tissues and using their remains to infect the next victim. However unpleasant the result may seem to us, it is exactly the sort of outcome an unintelligent, competitive, evolutionary process can produce.
Creationism, by contrast, has to pretend that these horrors are either not really horrors, not really designed, or somehow the consequence of a magical corruption of a once-perfect creation. But that merely moves the absurdity one step back. A perfect creation that can be corrupted into a world of parasites, pathogens, predation and zombifying fungi was never perfect in any meaningful sense. And an all-knowing designer who made, permitted or foresaw such life cycles is not rescued by calling them “fallen”; it is simply left with responsibility for the system in which they occur.
The spider-attacking fungi described in these papers are therefore not a problem for evolutionary biology. They are a problem for creationism. They show, once again, that life is not arranged as the product of benevolent design, but as the result of countless evolutionary arms races, in which organisms exploit whatever opportunities natural selection opens up — even when that means turning another creature’s body into a launching platform for the next generation of parasites.
Advertisement
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.
Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.
No comments :
Post a Comment
Obscene, threatening or obnoxious messages, preaching, abuse and spam will be removed, as will anything by known Internet trolls and stalkers, by known sock-puppet accounts and anything not connected with the post,
A claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Remember: your opinion is not an established fact unless corroborated.