Zombie fly fungus... Cause for concern?

[sparklemotion]

I've been noticing a lot of dead flies at the tips of some of my plants. Pictured below is the current leader on an acer ginnala (amur maple) pre-bonsai, but it's happening on ornamental grasses and some herbs (stevia) as well.

Some googling has led me to a diagnosis of entomophthora muscae (info here), which is as cool and gross as it looks. Basically, the fungus infects a fly, and tells its brain to go find a tall tree to climb and hold on until it dies (at which point the fruiting bodies further adhere the victim in place)

I am not finding any info about whether this particular fungus is a cause for concern for the plants that host the hosts. Some of the affected leaves seem to be dying, but I am not noticing any spreading.

Other than cutting off the leaves with the flies and maybe dousing things with daconil, is there anything else that I should do to protect the plants?

(Besides, of course, flushing all of the organic fertilizer down the toilet to get rid of the flies. ? Blue juice uber alles?)

 

[Johnathan]

This is so gross cool, strange, interesting... but gross lol

 

[hemmy]

Some of the affected leaves seem to be dying, but I am not noticing any spreading

Any pics of the damaged leaves? This doesn’t seem like a pathogen that would be particularly harmful to plants.

And thanks for the post, the Wikipedia page decribing entomophthora muscae is right out of a horror plot!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

This freaky fungus doesn't affect plants. It has co-evolved aongside the flies and it's pretty specific.
You can remove the flies with your hands, or a tweezer.
The japanese made an art out of eating cordyceps fungi fruiting bodies, a fungus related to this one.. At least in the way they spread.

No causes for concern, somebody in the area has most likely started some biological warfare to get rid of flies, and its working. I have found a few infected flies this year, I have let the fungus form a fruiting body and eventually the flies just rained off the plants.

 

[sorce]

You find the craziest shit!

I been thinking it was spiders....

But this year I have more...

But you....you have many!

Sorce

 

[Mike Hennigan]

Don’t cut off the leaves, just pull the flies off lol.

 

[Tieball]

Well....that’s a weird view to start the day.

 

[sparklemotion]

Thanks all... I feel like I can stand down the red alert a little.

I had to run out of the house this morning and didn't get time to get a picture of the possibly affected leaves. They mainly look like something died on them so there is some brown goo and shriveling. My instinct is to remove the brown leaves and maybe the ones with lots of flies because they are kind of gross. The example I posted above is probably the densest, most plants have just one or two flies total.