Fungi or fun guy: Mushroom is found growing on a living frog
The cordyceps fungus of “The Last of Us” may not pose a real risk of zombiefying humankind, but can the same be said of our amphibian friends?
Indian scientists on a nature walk through the foothills of the Western Ghats came across an unexpected discovery: a living frog that seemed to have a mushroom sprouting from its back.
The group of five explorers had been on the lookout for reptiles and amphibians while hiking along the bottom of the mountain range in June. But when they came across a small roadside pond packed with about 40 tiny frogs, they noticed something odd.
Perched on a twig, the frog had a bizarre growth on its left flank that, upon closer examination, was a small gray mushroom. Even more strange, the critter seemed unbothered by its partner.
Hobbyist naturalist Chinmay Maliye and Lohit Y.T., a river and wetlands specialist at World Wildlife Fund-India, were quick to photograph the discovery before the group continued onward.
“To the best of our knowledge, never has a mushroom sprouting from the flank of a live frog been documented,” the team wrote in a report in January in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians.
What do we know about golden-backed frogs?
The frog was among dozens of Rao’s intermediate golden-backed frogs (Hylarana intermedia) at the pond.
The frogs, which are about the size of a human thumb, are native to the region and are found in abundance in the Western Ghats, the authors wrote.
On that day in June, the foothills were bursting with the croaks of the frogs as Lohit, Maliye and their team tromped through the terrain on a herpetology hunt.
When they spotted the frog with the mushroom attached amid a congregation of Rao’s Intermediate Goldenbacked frogs, they decided to leave it undisturbed beyond a brief photo shoot.
Lohit posted the close-up images of the frog online in the nature journal to see if any citizen scientists could identify the fungal growth.
Why do experts consider the mushroom discovery so strange?
Lohit was not disappointed. Mushroom enthusiasts and experts alike jumped in to suggest it could be a bonnet mushroom in the genus Mycena. This type of mushroom primarily thrives on decaying organic matter such as plants and rotting wood, which is why experts were baffled about why one was growing on a frog.
Although plenty of fungi grow on living things, including the yeast that grows on our skin, most don’t become mushrooms. For a mushroom to grow, a fungal spore has to find a viable home on a surface before it can produce mycelia, similar to a plant’s root. The mycelia produces a mushroom only if it finds nutrients to grow.
Living creatures and fungus often are a fatal pairing, even if not as dramatic as those hunting Joel and Ellie in “The Last of Us.”
While the cordyceps fungus from the hit video game turned HBO series is real, the fungus takes over only ants and other insects before killing them. But in the case of this frog-fungus pair, the animal and the mushroom both appeared to be alive and well.
“The frog was not collected, so no prognosis is possible,” the authors wrote.