Could a fungus fuse itself to a living creature and how could the creature pass this on?

Question

Behold, a crocodile. The only thing that they have to worry about is hunger when they cannot catch a meal, and camouflage that is better than the eyes of their prey. What if a species of mushroom started growing on their skins in a symbiotic relationship. The fungus provides camouflage and the croc provides a meal. If enough radiation were induced to fuse the two entities together, could the croc have offspring born with mushrooms? And is this plausible at all? Thanks!

EDIT: Maybe check out the Mesodinium chamaeleon? It’s part plant part animal.

Answer 1

The croc offspring could acquire its mushrooms shortly after birth.

Lots of things have commensal organisms. We are loaded with them, inside and out. They help us in many ways, not least of which they keep worse things from moving in. They are good renters, a lot of our commensals.

It is tricky to pass a commensal along the germline. Almost always the commensals move in after the fact. It is a lot easier for young to acquire them as soon as they are born. We get ours via close contact with our mothers. Some of her commensal organisms get on us and become ours.

Your croc could do the same. Perhaps a shroom croc rolls in the nest before laying eggs. She is not planning ahead for her young because she is not that smart, but her ancestors who rolled in their fresh nests had better genetic fitness than those who did not, just as long before them the ancestors which built nests at all had better fitness than those that did not.

Fragments of her mushroom colony break off and remain in the nest. Then when the young hatch, they crawl around on those mushroom fragments which take root. A new generation of shroomcrocs!

Answer 2

Fungus reproduce by spores, so the host would pass on the fungus to others through interplay.

Many pathogens are indeed fungal in nature like Histoplasma, Pneumocystis, and Cryptococcus

this are just three examples of pathogenic Fungus.

as a matter of fact, fungus is a pathogen type playable in the game Plague Inc.

also, if the spores enter the reproductive track, then the offspring could contract the disease as well.

Answer 3

Pre-birth infection

You are covered in microflora both on the outside and also on the inside - both your mouth and genital tract are colonized by various microorganisms.

A symbiotic fungus living on the crocodile skin would likely also live in their cloaca. While ovaries generally are sterile, it seems quite feasible to imagine the fungus infecting the egg during the fertilization process, moving in together with the sperm, in which case the fungus (or its spores) would arrive before the egg shell is formed, and thus could be on the exterior of the egg yolk but inside the shell.

Answer 4

A woman with a nut allergy received an allergic reaction from coming into contact with her sexual partner's semen. As it turns out, the partner ate brazil nuts a few hours earlier, and as the brazil nut's protein resists digestion, it can actually be passed on sexually.

Link for reference.

Based on that real life event, there's plausibility to a fungus being able to pass itself on via the reproductive cells of an animal, thereby infecting at least the mother (even if not the child).

Given animals' tendency to at least somewhat interact with their offspring, or to at least be in the vicinity when they are born, transferring it from the mother to the newborn doesn't seem that far-fetched.

I'm no biologist, but even if crocodiles were to lay an egg and immediately abandon it, you can argue that the infected mother ended up contaminating the egg shell itself, and when the shell is broken when the youngling emerges, it releases spores which the youngling breathes in.

Answer 5

Read about mitochondria

They are believed to have originally been symbiotic cells in humans most eukaryotic organisms that are now passed on by mother. It is the only part of the body that contains DNA only from the mother.