It started out like any ordinary day. I stepped outside to water the flowers and check if the cats had scattered the trash again \u2014 something they loved to do. But as soon as I opened the gate, I was hit by an awful smell \u2014 thick, sour, and almost metallic. It made my chest tighten instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I followed the odor and froze in my tracks. Next to the flower bed, something strange was moving. It looked like a pale, slimy egg \u2014 and from inside, faint red shapes seemed to pulse, like they were alive. My first thought was \u201cIs that an animal? A creature? Something dead?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The smell was unbearable, like rotting meat. I stepped closer, holding my breath, and saw a clear, gelatinous membrane covering what looked like red tentacles pushing their way out. My heart pounded so fast I almost dropped my phone. I snapped a photo and ran back inside, desperate to find out what it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I searched online for \u201cred slimy thing with awful smell,\u201d I didn\u2019t expect the answer I found. What I had seen wasn\u2019t an animal at all \u2014 it was a Clathrus archeri<\/strong>, better known as the Devil\u2019s Fingers fungus.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s one of the strangest and creepiest mushrooms on Earth. It starts as a white \u201cegg\u201d shape that bursts open to reveal long, red, finger-like arms covered in a black, foul-smelling slime \u2014 meant to attract flies that spread its spores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may look like something out of a horror movie, but it\u2019s a rare natural phenomenon. Still, I\u2019ll admit it \u2014 I\u2019m not going near that flower bed again anytime soon. \ud83e\udee3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It started out like any ordinary day. I stepped outside to water the flowers and check if the cats had scattered the trash again \u2014 something they… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}