A photo on Facebook claims to show “mushrooms growing from the hand of a dead raccoon”.
According to the picture’s photographer, the photo is staged. Noah Siegel said on his Facebook page that the fungus pictured is Laccaria masoniae, which often grows around decaying animal corpses. He took the picture in New Zealand, and said the dead animal was a possum rather than a raccoon.
Mr Siegel wrote: “In the case pictured here, it was a trap line to try to control the invasive Brushtail Possum; a species native to Australia, which has become a major pest in New Zealand after its introduction for the fur trade. Seven carcasses were left to decay in the forest, 5 had a large fruiting of Laccaria around them (the other 2 were too fresh).
“The famous ‘claw’ can be seen in photo 3. While photographing this amazing fruiting, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for the claw to be offering up a bouquet of mushrooms, in a circle of life moment.”
A picture from another angle clearly shows the fungi are not growing out of the possum’s hand, but have instead been pulled up and placed there.