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Ancient Carnivorous Fungi Lassoed its Prey (3 of 3)

Caption: The excellent preservation of all developmental stages of the carnivorous fungus in amber allowed reconstruction of its whole life cycle. The formation of the trapping rings is shown in the upper left. Moving in the ancient soil, a nematode became trapped by a hyphal ring (middle). Once trapped the nematode was probably penetrated and digested by infestation hyphae. Spores are initially formed at the hyphae and later form yeast colonies (right). This image relates to article that appeared in the Dec. 14, 2007 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS. The study, by A.R. Schmidt at Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin in Berlin, Germany, was titled "Carnivorous Fungi from Cretaceous Amber."

Credit: Image courtesy of Science/AAAS

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