Species Feature #10, Dog Stinkhorn

Yuck, right? This fungus is just as nasty and gross as its common name would lead one to believe. I don't know whether to call it a mushroom - the loose definition is "a large, fleshy fungus."  It's got the large part down, more than many fungi which are called mushrooms. However, I'm not sure I'd call the fruiting bodies "fleshy."  They're hollow on the inside, and what structure they do have is spongy. The first time I encountered these, I was new to mycology... so I eagerly brought a couple in for identification. I first cleaned off what I thought was oil or some animal's feces (these were the spores, as it turns out). Once I got my specimens inside, I sliced them open in the closest approximation I could manage to a longitudinal section. The smell was enough to gag me, so I tossed the lot of them into the garbage disposal and chased them with some strong cleaning product or other. It wasn't enough - the kitchen stank for days. These things do look kind of cool in a bizarre way, but my advise is to leave them alone. The olfactory beating they'll give you just isn't worth it. Other species of stinkhorn can be equally odd, intriguing, and gross.

The rain had knocked these over and washed away the nasty spore goop.

Mutinus elegans Quick Facts

Common Name(s): dog stinkhorn, elegant stinkhorn, devil's dipstick, headless stinkhorn

Taxonomic Breakdown:

• Kingdom - Fungi
• Subkingdom - Dikarya
• Phylum - Basidiomycota
• Subphylum - Agaricomycotina
• Class - Agaricomycetes
• Order - Phallales
• Family -Phallaceae
• Genus - Mutinus
• Species - elegans

Synonyms: M. caninus, M. ravenelii


Range: To paraphrase Wikipedia, all of Eastern North America north of Mexico and as far west as Iowa. Also reportedly collected in Europe and Japan.

Here are some of the so-called "eggs." The fruiting bodies of other species of stinkhorn begin this way, as well.

Any attempt to describe this fungus seems to degenerate to a point-by-point goss-off, so I think I'll abandon all pretense and do exactly that.

Appearance: This is graphic, and I apologize, but this is why it got its common name. Frankly, it looks like a dog penis covered in feces. It is a pinkish-orange shaft that emerges from a white pouch, with oily black goo on the end.

Smell: It smells like poop.  Cut it open, and the smell becomes overpowering.

Texture: Its texture is that of a disease-ridden sponge. If your lving arrangements have ever been like mine were in college, you know what I'm talking about.

Common Names: 'Stinkhorn' wasn't enough to capture just how foul these things are. They needed several qualifiers.

Scientific Name: Not only does Mutinus elegans just sound disgusting, the genus is named for a phallic deity. You read that right. Biologists named this fungus partly as a reference to a penis god. If you extend this category to include all of its taxonomy, there are two more phallic references.

Reproduction: It's not that they reproduce by means of spores. That is common, ho-hum stuff. It's the way they disperse their spores. They secrete that slimy, diarrhea-like substance in hopes that it will attract flies, who will get it on their fet and spread it around. This thing's entire evolutionary strategy is to outstink decaying meat enough for flies to take notice.

Edibility: Despite all this, some people still insist on eating dog stinkhorns. They are considered edible in their "egg*" form. No. Thanks.


If I still have any readers after this post, I do have more content which I promise is at least slightly less disgusting.

If I see more of these this season, I'll try to replace this image with a better picture. Until then, farewell to the dog stinkhorn.

*It bothers me that stinkhorn buttons are referred to as "eggs." This implies things about its reproduction that are simply not the case.