I found a very strange red thing in the leaf litter under the bamboo in my front yard last week. It looked somewhat like a starfish. I thought it was a dog toy that someone had thrown over the fence, so I went to grab it by one of the arms and it literally disintegrated where I touched it, as though it were made of air.

At that point I looked more closely and realized that it was in fact a fungus growing out of a white ball in the leaf litter. I gathered it must be dispersed by flies by the brown ooze on some of the "arms" and the faint smell of poo emanating from it.

(For you non-biologists out there, lots of plants and fungi imitate the smell and/or appearance of poo or rotting meat in order to attract flies, who land on the deliciously stinky flower/fruiting body to investigate. Some pollen and/or fungal spores stick to the fly and are dispersed when it leaves to go to the next spot. It's one of the ways that plants and fungi send their offspring out into the world. Evolution is such a beautiful and intricate process, isn't it? Just fascinating.)

I took a picture of it and then went to my PC to type "starfish fungus" into Google. A few moments later I was at reading all about this interesting little fungus, which turned out to be Aseroe rubra.

It doesn't seem to be commonly reported in North America, but there it was, very happy in my front yard under the bamboo. Apparently Starfish Stinkhorns like wood chip mulch, and there is plenty of that out there. It only lasted a few days and then disappeared, but it was very cool while it lasted.