Which would be a much bigger evolutionary leap compared to losing the spider venom. And dauntingly big for a fungus that kills off 99% of hosts in the region th

Which would be a much bigger evolutionary leap compared to losing the spider venom. And dauntingly big for a fungus that kills off 99% of hosts in the region that quickly. I presume that the fungus is obligatorily parasitic, meaning it can't thrive outside its host, except as a spore. This is true for most pathogenic fungi. From the article it's not even clear that the fungus "spreads" well or at all in a mosquito population. I think they intend to grow the spores large-scale in a lab, and infect most of the mosquitos directly, and not through secondary transmission... Also: The fungus already exists in the wild. It just doesn't kill the host that quickly.