Friday Fungus: Ladybirds with STDs edition

Remember the crisis with those big, bad immigrant ladybirds? The ones that are driving the regular British ladybirds from the land, the grey squirrels of the insect world? Well they've got a problem - sexually transmitted fungal infection:

A team of Scottish scientists have called for the public’s help in mapping the spread of a sexually transmitted fungal epidemic increasingly found in the species.

The insect fungus, which is passed on primarily through mating, has been found infecting the spotted invader. 

It's not clear whether this is because the harlequin ladybirds are more rampant, more promiscuous or just most susceptible to the fungus - a chap called Laboulbeniales that leaves little yellow bristles all over the ladybird.

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Friday Fungus: the world's biggest living thing (and one of the oldest)!

The world's largest living thing is probably a mushroom - Armillaria ostoyae or the honey mushroom. The biggest example of this fungus covers 2,200 acres and is in the Malheur national forest in Oregon. And this mushroom is pretty old too - at least 2,400 years and possibly as much as 7,000 years. (There is some argument that the Pando or quivering aspen of Utah is bigger and older - but it's not a mushroom so who cares!)

I've read mixed reviews on the edibility of honey mushrooms with some claiming them as delicious while others suggest they cause quite serious gastric problems in some people. Personally, I always worry a little about parasitic fungi - no reason to but it some how feels better to think of them as wholly bad!