Magical Magic Creature Spotlight: Horklump

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Horklump

MOM Classification: X

The Horklump is a sort of fleshy mushroom-like organism that originated in Scandinavia but has since spread throughout northern Europe. It feeds on earthworms through tentacles which it extends into the soil (as opposed to “roots,” as Rowling says; nevermind that mushrooms don’t have “roots” but have something different called hyphae). Horklumps are a favorite food of Gnomes, and tend to overrun gardens.

Incidentally, in "Beedle the Bard" Straw(wo)man Beatrix Bloxam once complained about how she saw someone fondling Horklumps, which lends a whole new Freudian meaning to the whole business (fleshy pink mushrooms with bristles?).

Okay, so it's not really supposed to have a face but it was too easy.

Comments

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

Not to bring reality into this, but aren't there real fungi that strangle nematodes with their hyphae? If I thought that J.K. "Oh Maths!" Rowling knew any biology, I might think that feeding on earthworms by extending "roots" into the soil was somehow inspired by that fact. But given the lack of basic things like common sense and continuity in the Potterverse, I somehow doubt it.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

There are RL fungi that function as predators, which they accomplish by sending spores into the small animal and essentially decomposing it from the inside. I've heard of a fungus that does this with grasshoppers, for example. But I've never heard of a true mushroom doing that--if the worm was dead maybe. Then again, I'm no expert on mushrooms.

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

You're right. I dragged out my old botany textbook, and one of the examples that it gives for a predatory fungus is Arthrobotrys dactyloides, which is pictured in the process of "garroting" a nematode. It's a fungus, but not a mushroom. I also learned about Ophiocordyceps sinensis, which does what you describe to caterpillars.

Nature's diversity is truly marvelous, isn't it? ;)