Australian cordyceps gunnii
Fungi are weird, cordyceps are weird even for fungi. This Australian cordyceps gunnii was found in late autumn at about 1400m next to a grassy track running thru Antarctic beech forest. Cordyceps fruit from dead caterpillers. The cordycep fungus is eaten by or infects the grub when it is underground, they exist together for a while then eventually the fungus ‘takes control’ of the pupae. Things take a turn for the worse as the fungi kills the pupae with its head facing towards the soil surface, it then eats the pupae from the inside out using the food source to create its large club like fruit body. In this case its formed a double fruit body with a total length of 260mm. The pupae is about 90mm long and probably belonged to a species of rain moth. The club like fruit then produces copious amounts of white fluffy spores and the cycle continues. While this seems pretty weird, in the tropics things get even stranger with cordyceps species that fully zombify and control ants, forcing them to leave the nest, climb to a high vantage point, then bite into a leaf with their posteriors pointing up before they die and the fungi fruits.
Australian cordyceps gunnii
According to this paper there are 10 species of cordyceps in Australia, locally in NE NSW gunnii and hawkesii occur and I would not be surprised to see more species. I rarely find them and I have only found gunnii a couple of times tho its is relatively common on the east coast of Australia. Gunnii is the only aussie cordycep that is this colour so it is easy to recognize. In other parts of the world cordyceps are highly regarded for their medicinal properties. Some species have been cultivated and are made into extracts used for a number of different conditions. C. gunnii has had some studies done which show promising results. It may be that all the active compounds from c.sinensis are also present in c.gunnii. Keep an eye out for these weird yet fascinating fungi.
Kingfisher Mushrooms 