Hiker Discovers Creepy Alien-Like Creature That “Smells Like Rotting Flesh”

• A baffled hiker in Queensland, Australia found a mysterious red creature that smelled “like rotting flesh.”
• He shared a photo on Reddit and it eventually went viral from there.
• According to an expert, the creature is actually an Aseroe Rubra, otherwise known as ‘starfish fungus.’

An Australian hiker made an unexpected discovery while he was on the trails of Queensland. The man decided to take a photo and eventually posted it online, saying that it actually smells like a dead person.

In a recent Reddit post, u/aus556762 shared the photo and captioned it “WTF is this? Smells like rotting flesh.” It didn’t take long before curious netizens started commenting.

The original poster also added that it was “hard to describe the sickly sweet smell of rotting corpses to those who don’t have first hand experience already.” In fact, he said he actually picked up the stench “from about 1m out.”

Netizens had mixed reactions about the mysterious creature, with one saying that it “looks like something out of Resident Evil.” Another commented that it “looks like it belongs in the upside down,” referencing the hit sci-fi horror Netflix series Stranger Things.

Meanwhile, there are others who immediately recognized the creature and wrote:

“That my friend is a Stinkhorn, a kind of mushroom. The smell is to attract flies for pollination.”

Someone also shared:

“Had one appear in my yard once. I thought it looked like a cool alien plant and wanted to keep it but the wife was not happy about it.”

Eventually, Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens chief botanist and research director Brett Summerel confirmed that the creature is a ‘starfish fungus’ which has the scientific name Aseroe Rubra.

The fungus, according to a DailyMail article, can be commonly seen “in south-east Queensland, eastern New South Wales, eastern Victoria, Tasmania and southeastern South Australia.”