Cookeina Mushroom

Image: Geoff Gallice

Fairy bath!

Image: Drriss

Lots of fairy baths!

Image: berniedup

Lots of hairy, fairy baths!

Image: Brian Gratwicke

Cookeina is a genus of tiny Cup Mushrooms that can be found growing on rotting wood all over the world.

Within the mushroom are cells called asci, which are full of spores that are supposed to get released so they can grow into whole new mushrooms. When it rains, the mushroom fills up with water like a miniature bird bath and the asci absorb it and bulge with the pressure.

When it stops raining, the water level drops. The tips of the asci dry up and because the tips have thinner walls than the rest of cell, they POP! The spores are finally released!

Image: newmy51

Some mean-spirited Cookeina mushrooms have hairs which look as if they stop people from taking a bath in them. Shame...

Image: David Hamill

Frog bath!

Borneo Forestdragon

Image: Bernard DUPONT
Gonocephalus borneensis

Oh, dear. Fashion is such a fickle business. After all that time growing a mohawk from your neck up, it turns out you should have been growing it from your neck down! Darn... and you only just waxed your back after getting rid of the dorsal dreadlocks.

Cicada

Image: James Jordan

Take some earplugs and put them in your ears. Then get some earmuffs and put them over your ears. And then take your hands and cover your ears. You are now ready for a close encounter with a Cicada.

Ausubel's Mighty Claws Lobster

Image: WoRMS for SMEBD
Dinochelus ausubeli

The surgeon will see you now...

Moon-headed Sidegill Slug

Image: berniedup
Euselenops luniceps

It's a chocolate chip pancake with rolled, chocolate wafers in! Delicious! But what is it doing on the sea floor when I have a perfectly good plate right here?

Seahorse

Image: Nick Hobgood

Seahorses are fish who can barely swim and the males get pregnant. Seahorse, you're doing it wrong!