Coprinus comatus, The shaggy inkcap is a super intersting mushroom and metal as fuck.
First of all, the young mushrooms are edible and very tasty, but as soon as they get bigger, the hat starts dissolving into a black goo that drips down and makes it look like a fantasy trope type of corruption is spreading through the lands.
Actually tho it's because the gills of the mushroom digest themselves to produce that goo which contains all the spores for dispersal.
But that's not the most metal thing about it.
No, the shaggy inkcap is also a nematophagous fungus, i.e. it kills and eats tiny worms called nematodes to supply extra nitrogen.
There's a whole bunch of nematophagous fungi and they use different methods to kill the nematodes. There's five groups:
Nematode-Trapping most of these produce a type of glue that traps the nematodes, but some actually produce microscopic slings which contract and strangle a nematode if one happens to crawl through.
Ovicidal These fungi grow their mycelium into the eggs of nematodes and digest them
Endoparasitoid 'The nematodes ingest spores and the fungi will grow out of the nematode from the inside.
Toxin-Producing Oyster mushrooms belong to this group. They produce a toxin which immobilizes the nematodes and implodes their heads.
Special Attack Devices
Now these last two groups is where the shaggy inkcap comes in.
The hyphae (which are the stingy cells of the mycelium) grow absolutely microscopic structures which the scientific literature calls
"spiny balls"
They produce a toxin which immobilizes the nematode and then they veery slowly grow towards them and bonk them on the head with a morningstar ripping them apart. They then grow into the nematode with what scientific literature calls a "penetrating peg" and digest them from the inside. Metal as fuck
Sources: Luo et al. "Coprinus comatus: A Basidiomycete Fungus Forms Novel Spiny Structures and Infects Nematode", 2004 Soares et al. "Nematophagous fungi: Far beyond the endoparasite, predator and ovicidal groups", 2018
