This Mushroom Can Fly | Deep Look

Bird’s nest fungi look just like a tiny bird’s nest. But those little eggs have no yolks. Each one is a spore sac waiting for a single raindrop to catapult it on a journey with a layover inside the bowels of an herbivore. SUBSCRIBE to Deep Look! Please join our community on Patreon! DEEP LOOK is an ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small. --- The spore sacs, known as peridioles, sit in their splash cup, biding their time. When a raindrop hits the cup, a peridiole hurtles off in milliseconds. As it flies, the peridiole unfurls a cord and sometimes attaches to a blade of grass. When a hungry herbivore, such as a deer, eats the grass, it spreads the fungus’s spores in its droppings. --- How