CNN A glob of 99 million-year-old amber has preserved an ancient fly in horror show fashion: with the mushroom-like fruiting body of zombie fungus bursting forth from its head.
The insect, along with a second specimen of a young ant infected with a similar fungus, are two of the oldest examples of a bizarre natural phenomenon that involves fungal parasites hijacking the bodies of their hosts before ultimately killing them.
“Amber gives us this opportunity to visualize the ancient ecological relationships preserved in fossils,” said Yuhui Zhuang, a doctoral student at the Institute of Paleontology at Yunnan University in southwestern China.