The world’s second-deadliest fungus has been discovered in suburban Cairns, Far North Queensland — but how it got there has scientists baffled.
Poison fire coral originates from Japan and Korea but the Australian Tropical Herbarium (ATH) has confirmed its detection in a rainforest in the Redlynch Valley in Cairns.
ATH mycologist Dr Matt Barrett said scientists thought it might be a natural occurrence.
“But we don’t really have a very good understanding at all of the fungi in northern Australia,” Dr Barrett said.
“The distribution is all the way through South-East Asia as far as we can track it, but the records are very scattered.”
“The distribution is all the way through South-East Asia as far as we can track it, but the records are very scattered.”
Image: Supplied/Ray Palmer
Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-03/deadly-fungi-poison-fire-coral-found-in-far-north-qld/11571162
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