Cool! That looks really similar to the epizootic outbreaks of Beauveria that I find on lissid beetles down here in Vic, also under eucalyptus bark - it shows how the fungi can form sort of plaques, when sheltered like that!

Aye they're hefty. The huhu grubs are edible too, they reportedly taste like peanut butter. I wonder what zombie fungi claims them too

Very cool paper! Thanks for sharing. I asked whether the mechanism was verified because it's always been a bit fuzzy/theoretical with endophytic EPF, but I'm not so familiar with Ophiocordyceps! This is certainly getting close to solving it

How do you know it passively transmits to insects through the endophytic phase? As in, by what mechanism?

Hi Timothée, I'd like to be added please, my orcid: orcid.org/0000-0002-45...

please add @cescomartons.bsky.social 🙏, an ento-nerd, new to bluesky!!

Dam this is so rubbish!!! Sorry to hear. I have no doubt you'll find your feet somewhere soon, and so your great research will surely continue 🥲

His Google Scholar is interesting to read through, you can see him having an epiphany, over time, on what gets citations - and he credits publishing polarising material, and then see him adopt it as a method to gain power/influence, esp during covid

A beautiful mycosed #moth too

Also, on the hiking track, here is a magnificent New Zealand Huhu beetle, likely infected with #Beauveria sp., though still early stage infection - there appears to be conidiophores on the left antenna 😍

Brilliant 👏, we should chat sometime about translating these ideas to tephritid fruit flies 😄