WHAT!!!, Scientists made a surprising discovery in the foothills of the Western Ghats in India as mushroom growing out of the side of the frog. This is the first time that a mushroom has observe growing out of a living being.
On 19th June, 2023, the researchers discover many “Rao’s Golden-backed frogs” in a rainwater-fed pond on the roadside in the foothills of the Kudremukha ranges at Mala, Karkala, in Karnataka.
But one of the frogs had what look like a white-colour growth coming out from the right side of its body.
As it turn out, that was a mushroom growing out of a living frog.
The frog was not capture, but the researchers took pictures of it and documented it in a note publish in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians.
Fungus experts who look at the images identified the white growth to be a Bonnet mushroom, which usually grows on dead and rotting wood.
There are many fungi that grow in a symbiotic relationship with other organisms.
There are also some that are parasitic and can cause infections like mucormycosis, more commonly known as “black fungus.”
But this is the first time that a mushroom has observe growing on a living organism.
There are many theories about how the mushroom began growing there, especially considering that the humid conditions of the Western Ghats would have given a great environment to grow.
But since the frog was not capture, it is unclear how exactly the mushroom was growing.
It also cannot be determine how the growth of the mushroom is affecting the frog.
The researchers raise concern about the discovery because there is already a fungus that threatens more than 700 species of amphibians across the world, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.
It causes the disease chytridiomycosis, which can cause sporadic deaths in some populations while having a 100% mortality rate in others.
There are no known effective measures to control its propagation and protect different frog species.
But it is not like there aren’t any clues.
Bonnet mushroom expert said that the growth does look like a bonnet mushroom but it could also be something else that looks similar.
But even that is nothing but a hypothesis at best and scientists need a lot more information before finding a conclusion to the mystery.
