Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
CNN
—
When observing a hoard of golden-backed frogs at a roadside pond in Karnataka, India, a group of naturalists noticed something odd about one of the amphibians — the animal had a tiny mushroom sprouting out of its side.
How the seemingly healthy frog came to grow its fungi companion — an occurrence that’s never been documented before — has left scientists baffled, according to a note published in January in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians.
“When I first observed the frog with the mushroom, I was amazed and intrigued by the sight,” said Lohit Y T, a rivers and wetlands specialist with World Wildlife Fund-India in Bengaluru, via email. Y T was a part of the group that discovered the frog. “My thought was to document it, as this phenomenon is something we have never heard of. We just wanted this to be a rare incident and not a dangerous phenomenon for the frog.”
The species — known as Rao’s intermediate golden-backed frog, or the scientific name Hylarana intermedia — is found in abundance in the southwestern Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala. The frogs are small, growing to be only up to 2.9 inches (7.4 centimeters) in length.
As the naturalists watched the frog with the fungal growth, the animal moved from the center of the twig it sat upon to the very tip, turning around and changing positions, but the mushroom remained perfectly in place, Y T said. The group did not touch the frog.
Lohit Y T
The frog moved from the center of the twig it sat upon to the very tip, turning around and changing positions, but the mushroom remained perfectly in place, Y T said.
The authors discovered the amphibian in June 2023 and did not collect it, so neither the cause of the phenomenon nor the fate of the frog is known.
But through pictures, mycologists later identified the mushroom growing out of the frog’s flank as a common bonnet, part of the Mycena genus, a type of fungi that mostly grows on rotting wood from dead trees, the authors wrote in the published paper. The fungus is a saprotrophic decomposer, a mushroom that typically gets its nutrients from dead or decaying organic matter — but a 2023 study found the mushroom could evolve to thrive on living plants as well.
The 2023 study further suggested that the Mycena fungus could develop to have a symbiotic relationship with living plants or trees, meaning that both the plant and the fungus growing on it would benefit from the arrangement — the fungi would both take nutrients from and transfer them to the plant host. In trees, Mycena could be helpful by pruning dead branches, the authors added.
The prognosis of the frog with the mushroom hitchhiker is unknown, but there are a handful of theories as to the cause of its condition.
Upon first seeing the report of the frog with a mushroom attached to its flank, Alyssa Wetterau Kaganer, a postdoctoral associate in the department of public and ecosystem health at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, found the discovery fascinating.
“Fungi are dynamic organisms that adapt to changes in their environment, and with…
This article was originally published by a amp.cnn.com . Read the Original article here. .