June 15, 2011 Sing it with us: What lives in the rainforest,
under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii, a new species of
mushroom almost as strange as its cartoon namesake. Its
discovery in the forests of Borneo, says San Francisco State
University researcher Dennis Desjardin, suggests that even some
of the most charismatic characters in the fungal kingdom are yet
to be identified. Shaped like a sea sponge, S. squarepantsii was
found in 2010 in the Lambir Hills in Sarawak, Malaysia. It is
bright orange -- although it can turn purple when sprinkled with
a strong chemical base -- and smells "vaguely fruity or strongly
musty," according to Desjardin and colleagues' description
published in the journal Mycologia. Under a scanning electron
microscope, the spore-producing area of the fungus looks like a
seafloor carpeted in tube sponges, which further convinced the
researchers to name their find after the famous Bob. The new
species is only one of two species in the Spongiforma genus. The
other species is found in ce