See how the devil's fingers are born

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
08 January 2024 Monday 15:38
12 Reads
See how the devil's fingers are born

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia

I made a terrarium a few months ago in a fish tank. The idea was to add green moss and some species of plants that grow well in humidity.

About a month and a half ago, some white eggs came out that I didn't know what they were, until one of those eggs opened and some kind of tentacles came out, as you can see in these photographs in Readers' Photos from La Vanguardia.

I did a little research and realized that they are the so-called fingers of the devil, which had already been talked about in La Vanguardia. I know that here, in the Basque Country, it is one of the places in Spain where they can come out in the forests, but the funny thing is that, for me, without knowing what it was, they came out inside the terrarium that I made in a fish tank, as these images show.

The showy Clathrus archeri or devil's fingers mushroom is basically located in northern Spain. Also known as squid or red star mushroom, it is quite a mystery, since it is of Australian or New Zealand origin. But they continue to proliferate in natural areas of Galicia, but also in Cantabria, Asturias, the Basque Country, Navarra and, more residually, in Catalonia.

Clathrus archeri was first discovered in Europe in 1914, in the French district of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. It is suspected that it arrived here during the First World War through spores attached to the horses of Australian soldiers and their forage or, simply, on the soldiers' boots.

The possibility is also being considered that it was introduced into the French district of Bordeaux in the yarns of Raon-l'Étape as the spores traveled through wool arriving from the southern hemisphere.