moth pupa parisitized by fungi

[bill and Dale]

Everyone,
     Regarding my question about identifying moth pupa that had been
parasitized by the fungus Cordyceps militaris I need to make some
clarifications. Based on a couple of initial responses to my post it's
become apparent that it's easy to misunderstand what exactly I was
asking about so I'm going to restate the post.
   First let me revise the size range of the moth pupa. It should have
read 1.7 to 2.6 cm in length. After examining all specimens closely I
realized that the report of a specimen 1 cm was in fact a broken pupa,
not a whole entity. The remaining four pupae are intact and in good
condition however they are dead and mummified. To visualize to situation
imagine to movie "ALIEN" where the extraterrestrial monster invades the
human's body and grows inside and eventually bursts out through the
victim's chest. This is the condition of the pupa. The vegetative part
of the fungus invades the pupa and extracts all the nutrients from the
victim's body by releasing powerful enzymes that break down all the
organic matter. After the nutrient supply is exhausted from the pupa the
fungus produces a reproductive body (commonly called a mushroom) which
bursts through the outer layer of the pupa and eventually breaks above
ground a few centimeters so it can discharge its spores. The pupa
remains below ground and all that is visible is a small spindle shaped
orange mushroom. If you are lucky enough to see this and know what it is
you can carefully dig below the mushroom and retrieve the mummified
pupa. I'm interested in getting help identifying these mummified pupae.
So these little reddish/brown moth pupae buried 2 to 5 cm under the
forest duff in the Salmon River State Forest of Connecticut must be
fairly common and my understanding is that the parasitic fungus,
Cordyceps militaris is not uncommon either so I'm hoping someone can
help me with a possible identification of these interesting finds.
Thanks again.


Bill Yule


 
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