A Smelly Mushroom

In Bridgers 3, the bridgers meet some interesting beings who live off the land. One important food source for these beings is wild mushrooms.

I was reminded of this a few days ago when our neighbors came over and said they had some weird mushrooms growing in their flower garden. They wanted our opinion on what they were.

It turns out their mushrooms were stinkhorns (more specifically, the elegant stinkhorn).

Stinkhorns were given their rather unflattering name because, well, they stink. When you put your nose within an inch or two of these fungi, you are hit with an odor somewhere between the smell of soil and the smell of rotting garbage. We looked around in the garden and found a half dozen of these. On one of them, I noticed a carrion beetle busily chomping away (in the photo above you can see spots where carrion beetles have eaten portions). In case you don't know, carrion beetles usually feed on rotting animal carcasses. So if the stinkhorn appeals to carrion beetles, it must really stink!