Facehugger? Demogorgon? The Devil's fingers? | Dig Deeper episode 15 | Kew

You said devil's name three times. So

like >> why are we hiding from the rain under some bamboo near the minka house to get a look at the devil's fingers? Let's dig

deeper.

[Music] So, it's very appropriate we've come to see this uh spooky fungy on such a uh dark and stormy day. We know it as the

devil's fingers because the bright red color um and tentacle shapes look like the devil's fingers are reaching out from the ground bursting from below the surface.

>> Um so, we are in amongst the bamboo garden at the Minka House. Um, and we're here because there's something foul smelling and appalling underneath the bamboo. And I don't mean the children.

bamboo. And I don't mean the children.

Okay, so uh this is the bed where we found almost all of the clatterus so far. It's a big bamboo bed and

far. It's a big bamboo bed and underneath it all there are dozens and dozens of clas coming up. Um, so here we've got loads of these clusters of eggs. So these are the immature fruits

eggs. So these are the immature fruits that going to start to hatch. So these

egg-like structures are only called eggs because they kind of look like them. the

maturing fruing body is inside of them.

The egg helps to protect those structures while they're developing and while the spores uh are still maturing.

And then as they kind of mature, they'll burst open to show this gooey gray slimy interior.

A little bit further back, you've got some that are halfway out and just emerging. They look really cute. And

emerging. They look really cute. And

then here at the front, this is an example of what they're like when they emerge. sort of spllaying red foul

emerge. sort of spllaying red foul octopus that's on the compost. So, and

then it's this is the gleber that's starting to dry up here that's been attracting all the bugs to go and spread the spores around. These fungi are sapotropes, so they decay dead organic

material. These fungy in particular love

material. These fungy in particular love to eat wood chips. But you got some eggs here that are still yet to open up. And

you can see these kind of white stringy parts growing off of them. Those are the risomorphs. With these uh stinkhorn

risomorphs. With these uh stinkhorn fungi, the group of these fungi uh produce special types of mcelium called ryomorphs. So they look like thicker

ryomorphs. So they look like thicker kind of roots, white roots that spread across the uh wood chip. And that's

those essentially act like um bigger transport systems. It allows them to transport more nutrients across the mcelium so they can essentially spread uh further and wider. You can see the

mcelium on the underside. It's quite

thick. Um, and these are the the risomorphs here that spread through the compost.

>> What we see the structure with the fingers um is technically just the fruing body of the fungus which spends most of its time in a mcelial form underground grading things and it's only

when it needs to reproduce does it form this structure?

>> Genitalia.

So >> it's genital it's the the mcelium produces genitals to have babies but the main body is this mcelium underground.

>> You could also compare it to the uh fruits or flowers of a plant.

>> So once they once these eggs sort of split open the actual fruing body emerges out of it and it looks a bit like a squid or an octopus. So it's this sort of bright red fingery tentacles

covered in this brown foul smelling gunge which is the whole reason that these emerge in the first place.

>> Right. All right, tell us more about the gunge.

>> So, the gunge uh it's got a scientific name. We call it glea. Um, and it's a

name. We call it glea. Um, and it's a muddy brown greeny sludge that's stuffed full of spores, which is what the fungus is produced in the first place to

produce and spread. The spores are the, you know, the effectively baby fungi that will drift off, but they produce them in this really gross smelling gong to attract insect tools, stomp all over

them, eat the slime, and then fly off and disperse the spores for them. To me,

it smells a bit like stale, rotting meat and dog poo.

>> I think these smell like foul foul foul uh poo meat rotting together. It's It's

very gross.

>> I think you can sum it up in one word and that's putrid.

>> So, we know what compounds they're producing that make this aromatic profile, I guess, if you like. Um, so

they produce mostly sulfur based compounds which is where you get the the kind of rotting meat type smell from.

But then the poo smell comes from uh compounds like phenol, indol and pressol.

>> Insects have a very uh keen sense of smell. Their noses are essentially on

smell. Their noses are essentially on their antenna where they can pick up molecules from the air and insects would be able to smell out these foul smelling fungi from many many meters away to

track them down and eat that tasty spore mass and help disperse the spores elsewhere. So clus it's in the the

elsewhere. So clus it's in the the fungal family we call the phalaci.

They're the stink horns. They're named

after the genus fallus. It's called that because it has a striking anatomical uh resemblance. However, this one looks

resemblance. However, this one looks more like a squid. And this whole family produced these really unusual fruing bodies that look like everything from a starfish to a anemone to a geodic football covered in slime that's bright

yellow. So, we have these uh phalac

yellow. So, we have these uh phalac fungy in the UK. So, we have the genus fall here, the stinghorn. Um, this

particular one, these clus, these come from Australia and New Zealand. um and

they've been introduced into the UK possibly in wood chip or possibly in compost or the soil around plants that are being moved and transported for horiculture and display and what have you.

>> There is a theory that Clafris archery was introduced from New Zealand in World War I uh when they were importing shipments of wool to make uh uniforms and other supplies for the war.

>> We know that things like flowers use color as an attractant for pollinating insects. So in this case it may be that

insects. So in this case it may be that the color red also helps with attracting insects along with the smell that they produce. But coloring fungi is a weird

produce. But coloring fungi is a weird one because most fungi don't in any way rely on insects as pollinators. So then

there's no obvious reason why mushrooms may be all sorts of different colors and they come in every color you can conceivably imagine. So it's one of

conceivably imagine. So it's one of those sort of additional mysterious things about fungy that we don't yet know about. Um, generally with fungi,

know about. Um, generally with fungi, uh, they like quite damp, wet, uh, cool conditions. Uh, and that's what, um,

conditions. Uh, and that's what, um, kind of causes them to to go into fruing mode to create these fruing bodies. So,

we we do collect fungi from the gardens.

We do store them in the fungarium. Some

people collect an awful lot constantly.

Um, funnily enough, uh, one of these clatus archery from the bamboo here was one of the first things I collected that got incorporated into the fungarium when I started in 2015. The thunder's turned

into rain, so we're going to go and hide in the minka house.

So, so scientifically this fungus only has one name. That's Clus Archery, which is a lot to remember. So, they have three different common names. Different

people know them by different names depending on where they are in the world. So, uh, one of those is the

world. So, uh, one of those is the devil's fingers, but it also gets called the octopus sting horn because it looks like an octopus, or the squid fungus because it's also squid like.

>> So, there are several, uh, fungi in the same family which have a similar appearance, such as, um, as rubra, which has more of a cene appearance. Um,

there's also clarioid fungy, which are club-shaped. Um, and there's also some

club-shaped. Um, and there's also some in the xylari, uh, such as dead man's fingers, which kind of look like a black and white version, not quite, uh, so

soft and spongy. They're a bit tough.

Uh, but yeah, nothing's quite like it.

>> So that you can find these fungy, and they'll last the egg shape, if you like, the egg form for weeks, sometimes.

>> Oh, it's a clown. So, you can find these fungy in the egg shape and the egg form for sometimes several weeks before they emerge. Um, but once they do actually

emerge. Um, but once they do actually hatch out and you've got the finger bits, they'll they usually don't last more than a day or so. So, they'll

they'll be like bright red and over a day, maybe two days, they'll go floppy and start to decompose. So, they're

quite shortlived once they've hatched.

Thanks for watching. Hope you've enjoyed coming and checking out the devil's fingers with us. Bye.

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