People Are Freaking Out Over This Monster Fungus That Smells Like Rotting Crab (LiveScience)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer | November 28, 2017 01:18pm ET

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When the squid-like stinkhorn fungus raises its gloopy, toothed arms to the heavens, it might look like it's enacting some salutation to an alien sun. But its purpose is in fact much more earthly: to attract swarms of hungry flies that will spread spores embedded in the fungus' sticky arm-gloop across the surrounding countryside. (You know, normal horrifying fungus stuff.)

C. archeri isn't new, but many people are just now discovering its purplish, diabolic majesty through a viral post on Reddit.

"What continent is that from so I make sure never to go there?" the top commenter asked.

The fungus is native to New Zealand and Australia, but it spread through Asia and Europe in 1914 — apparently stowed away among military supplies during the First World War, according to the Royal Botanical Gardens' site, Kew.org. And in 1982, the mycologists David Arora and William R. Burk announced that C. archeri had spread to North America. The specimens they found in California likely descended from spores carried over on exotic plants, the researchers said. Those specimens are part of a small collection of the freakish fruiters that remains active on this side of the Pacific. [Microscopic Worlds Gallery: Fascinating Fungi]

Termed "devil's fingers" outside scientific circles, C. archeri typically turns up in clusters in the soil around decaying wood chips and old stumps, or in leaf litter, according to Kew.

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more: https://www.livescience.com/61042-devil-fingers-fungus-alien.html



Ah, stinkhorns again ! Best known due to phallus impudens.

[Marie Marie]

1. Look under Trump's hair - Bet you will find it growing abundantly

on his old stump and the decaying wood chips that fill his skull where one's brain should be.

[Solly Mack]

2. That is absolfuckinglutely awesome

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Audrey's 2nd cousin, methinks.

"Feeeed Meee".

[Solly Mack]

5. Ha! The nicer cousin.

One hopes. lol

[forgotmylogin]

3. That is some terrifying Lovecraft nightmare fuel there.

I remember a friend in Florida who was very interested in rare orchids had one that similarly was pollinated by flies and smelled like rotting meat. He admonished me "This is a rare thing you won't get to see very often!" and my reply was "I can see it well enough from over here!"