00:00Almost 200 new plants and fungi were named new to science last year.
00:06Conservationists warn that many are already threatened with extinction.
00:10The Royal Botanic Gardens in London has revealed its top 10 species that were described in 2025.
00:17A killer fungus found in the Atlantic rainforest of Brazil has become quite popular
00:22because of the series The Last of Us, in which a fungus turns humans into zombies, this researcher says.
00:28It's just that in nature, in real life, this fungus has the capacity of infecting insects
00:33and basically controlling their nervous system and then effectively making them zombies, right?
00:40So these new species we found, as it happens, it parasitizes spiders, what we call trapdoor spiders.
00:46This new species found in Ecuador, known as blood-stained orchid,
00:50is remarkable for its way of achieving pollination and reproduction.
00:53This flower imitates a female fly, so it makes the male fly think that it's a female
01:00and then the fly comes and copulates with it.
01:03Other species that made it to the top 10 include the fire demon flower,
01:08a critically endangered snowdrop and the caterpillar orchids.
01:11This is a female.
01:12So this is a female species.
Comments