Out of the millions of fungal species in the world only a few hundred can make people sick.
Coccidioides is one of them.
Its spores can sometimes cause pretty serious infections in humans.
But that's not the weirdest thing about this fungus.
Most fungi prefer dark, damp and relatively cool conditions, but this one has found a way to live in the desert.
And while most fungi eat dead or decaying material, cocci doesn't always wait for an animal to die before it starts digesting them from the inside out.
Drama aside, this fungus has existed for millennia and yet there's still so many things we don't understand about it.
Like exactly where it is at any given time or how it spreads in the soil… because it is spreading.
And we can only guess why.
The infection caused by cocci goes by many names.
