Sunday 27 November 2016

Fungtopus? The Fungus That Looks Like An Octopus

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Clathrus archeri is looking every inch the result of a GM experiment gone wrong, it resembles a strange cross between a toadstool and an octopus. Yet this is not the result of some subterranean gene-splicing enterprise to bring the world a spore-bearing cellaphod.

This is exactly how nature intended the Octopus Stinkhorn. The shape and form you see is an integral but short-lived part of its life-cycle. The Octopus Stinkhorn is native to Australia. The fungus emerges from an egg which is called superumpent - this means that rather than hatching or germinating it, effectively, erupts in an explosion of enlargement.