Here's a leg from beneath a fungus that looked about the same, only there wasn't that one big purple spike....looks like a spider leg, no?

Moved from Unsolved bug-related mysteries to spiders, and added to the fungus victim gallery. I was guessing it was probably a spider under there, having found similar-looking fungi growing out of spiders on leaves a few times before.

Barb mailed me this specimen. It is a spider attacked by Gibellula leiopus. The purple fingers are synnemata of the fungus, and they bear characteristic, short, Aspergillus-like conidiophores that produce chains of purplish asexual spores. The yellowish, granular mat covering the host is another form of the same fungus (a synanamorph called Granulomanus)--it produces asexual spores as well, but in a different way than the synnemata. The sexual state is not present--it has been called Torrubiella arachnophila var. leiopus (is that enough names for ya?).

As far as I know, this pathogen has a global distribution, and is specific to spiders. Which spiders? We don't know the host range, perhaps because mycologists are rarely good arachnologists. Under my microscope I can see four legs sticking out on one side, but not enough of the spider's body to tell what group it's in. It's a nice, small specimen.
Here is a link to a description and illustration of the fungus at BCRC, (Taiwan Bioresource Collection).

Moved from ID Request.

Dunno what this is myself, but it'll get more attention here than in the depths of ID Request.

I think there may be an insect or spider under there somewhere, that has been killed by this now-fruiting fungus. My best guess anyway.