Daniel Cooper's Photo Blog: Fungus infected soldier fly

Welcome to my blog

I am an exclusive photographer with istockphoto and produce a wide variety of images. Recently I have been experimenting with high magnification photography of insects, plants and anything else I find that looks interesting up close.

I am a first year undergraduate studying Biology at the University of Oxford. I have a particular interset in entomology and enjoy exploring the huge diversity of insect species in the UK.

I aim to use this blog to share some of the photos I have been taking which I find particularly interesting, I try to do a little bit of research on the subjects of my photos but am far from an expert. if I have made any big errors or misidentified something, please leave a comment or send me an email to correct me .

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Tuesday 9 February 2010

Fungus infected soldier fly

This is a soldier fly I found late August last year, it has been infected and killed by an entomopathogenic fungus, possibly Zoophthora radicans. This is visible on the second photo as a white powdery substance on the abdomen and wings.

What is particularly interesting about these type of fungi is the effects that they can have on insects. Fungal infections can cause flies to climb up to the top of a plant, spread their wings and become stuck on the surface of a leaf or stem. These effects all increase the chance that the fungal spores will spread, infecting more insects.

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