Some fungi craft sticky nets laced with tempting scents to snare their prey. Others create deadly collars that constrict as the worm struggles, immobilizing the prey as the fungus’s hyphae penetrate its body. Some even release tiny sickle-shape spores that, when swallowed by a nematode, wreak havoc from within.
The scenarios all end with the worm’s body invaded by the threads of its hungry captor.
The oyster mushroom’s weapon of choice seems to be a toxin: Worms that touch the fungus are paralyzed, and their cells fall apart as they succumb to the hyphae. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers report that they’ve identified the substance, which is contained in globes that they compare to lollipops. To the scientists’ surprise, it is a fairly common molecule, rather than an exotic, highly evolved substance. But to the hapless worms, it’s deadly.