Scientists have captured a mesmerizing new time-lapse showing the birth and decay of a penis-shaped fungus notorious for its foul smell.
The mushroom is the visible part of a stinkhorn mushroom (Phallus impudicus), which commonly grows near rotting wood and plants and can reach up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) above the ground. The stem is topped by a bell-shaped cap covered in olive-brown slime, known as the gleba, which gives the mushroom its unmistakable stench.
“The smell of stinkhorns has been described as similar to decomposing flesh, rotting feces and sewage,” said the University of Florida. website. Despite their unappetizing smell, stinkhorns are edible. “The taste of Phallus impudicusknown as the common stinkhorn, is reported to resemble hazelnuts when eaten in its egg state,” the website states.
Stinkhorns emerge from a small, egg-shaped base buried in the ground and bound to the ground with white filaments. This base contains a blob of slime and spores that eventually become the mushroom’s stinky cap.
Related: Horrifying photo captures instant parasitic fungus bursting from giant spider’s body
In the new video, scientists captured the moment a stinkhorn emerged from its base and grew to its full size within three hours.
“What you see in our video is the short lifespan of the fruiting body of the stinkhorn,” Regionalforstamt Soest-Sauerland, the government forest office for the Soest-Sauerland region in eastern Germany, said in a translated Facebook post. “It took three weeks to shoot this video. Nothing happened for the first two weeks, we had to wait and keep checking the camera until we finally got this shot.”
Flies swarmed around the mushroom’s gleba as soon as it formed, the post said, attracted by the putrid smell. They feasted on the slime for 10 hours, removing the fungus from its olive-brown covering. Over the following few days, the remaining white body, known as a “corpse finger”, can be seen beginning to rot before slowly falling over. The footage then shows the fruiting body as it breaks down and disappears back into the ground.
This short lifespan is enough time for stinkhorns to complete their reproductive cycle. The fungi’s sticky cap is filled with spores that flies and other invertebrates ingest as they feed on the slime and spread to new locations via their excrement, according to the University of Florida.
This strategy is different from most mycelium-forming fungi, which spread their spores by releasing them into the wind, and it explains the mushroom’s offensive odor, the website noted.
