Figure 1

Life cycle and phenotypic polymorphism of C. militaris. The round conidia (from a solid culture) or the bar shaped blastospores (from a liquid culture) were inoculated onto caterpillar pupa or rice medium and incubated for up to 60 days. The resulting fertile fruiting bodies have protruded perithecia that contain asci. The ejected linear ascospores fragment and germinate to produce secondary pear-shaped conidia under nutrient poor conditions, that is, micro-cycle conidiation. Both the ascospores and secondary conidia can infect caterpillars. Scale bar: 5 μl.