While on the trails of Queensland, an Australian hiker made an unexpected discovery . The man made a decision to take a photo and eventually posted it on the internet, saying that it actually smells like a d:ea:d person.
In a recent Reddit post, u/aus556762 shared the photo and captioned it “WTF is this? Smells like rotting fl:esh.” It didn’t take long before curious internet users started commenting.
The original poster (OP) also added that it was “hard to describe the sickly sweet smell of rotting corpses to those who don’t have first hand experience already.” In fact, he said he actually picked up the stench “from about 1m out.”
Netizens had mixed reactions about the mysterious creature, with one saying that it “looks like something out of Resident Evil.” Another commented that it “looks like it belongs in the upside down,” referencing the hit sci-fi horror Netflix series Stranger Things.
In the mean time, there are others who immediately recognized the creature and wrote:
“That my friend is a Stinkhorn, a kind of mushroom. The smell is to attract flies for pollination.”
Someone also shared:
“Had one appear in my yard once. I thought it looked like a cool alien plant and wanted to keep it but the wife was not happy about it.”
Eventually, Brett Summerel, Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens chief botanist and research director, confirmed that the creature is a ‘starfish fungus’ which has the scientific name Aseroe Rubra.
According to a DailyMail article, the fungus can be commonly seen “in south-east Queensland, eastern New South Wales, eastern Victoria, Tasmania and southeastern South Australia.”
