A hiker has been left baffled after stumbling across a mysterious alien-like creature on a popular Queensland trail.
The red starfish-fish shaped growth was photographed by a hiker who uploaded the photo to Reddit on Thursday.
The adventurer said he was hiking in Mount Nebo in Moreton Bay when he discovered the mushroom, which he said smelt like ‘rotten flesh’.
While Reddit users struggled to provide identification, Brett Summerell, the Chief Botanist and Director of Research at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens was able to confirm the growth was a Aseroe Rubra or ‘starfish fungus’.
The fungi belongs to a family of mushrooms known as Stinkhorns and is also known as the anemone stinkhorn or sea anemone fungus.
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The mushroom is infamous for its production of sticky brownish slime that emits a foul odour, comparative to faeces, sewage and rotting meat.
Stinkhorn species are usually quite colourful, and can be phallic-shaped, sprout arms or even form a net-like structure.
The rotten smell is produced to attract flies for pollination, who ingest and trample the spores to create new fungi colonies.
Read more: Daily Mail
