I found possibly the biggest grasshopper I've ever seen today and that was going to be my photo, but then I came across this poor earwig, killed by fungus, and this is a much less common sight than grasshoppers, for me at least!
The earwig is covered in a kind of fungus of the order Entomophthorales, from the Greek Entomo - insect and Pthor - destroyer. I think the spores land on an unlucky creature, infect it and then grow into the insect and kill it from the inside, kind of eating it from the inside out. They then grow fruiting bodies, which are what you can see on this earwig, and the cycle repeats when the fruits explode and release spores.
I have heard of this happening with ants too, can clearly see the earwigs wings, not many people know they can actually fly short distances but dont like to.
@trinda Thanks. I read widely about the natural world and I love insects. My camera is great, I love that it captures colours so accurately and lets me take some nice close ups. It's just a bridge camera, but I like it that way, so I can just tinker with the easier settings to achieve what I want to, I'm a lazy photographer really and I often need to snap fast to capture wildlife so don't have time to faff with manual settings all the time.
