Nature’s wonders

Every living thing is unique, be it animal or plant. In the Philippines, the so-called ulang is as big and long as the more popular and commercially available tiger prawn.

Also called giant river prawn or giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii), the ulang can grow up to 12 inches or one foot long. Because it is rare, it commands a higher price than prawns and shrimp. One source of delicious seafood is the Pampanga River in San Simon, Pampanga.

In a recent episode of the TV show “I Juander,” the difficulty of sourcing ulang in the river was featured with prawner Danilo Mercado doing it early in the morning. It was from catching and selling ulang that Mercado could buy his own fishing banca and support his family.

Meanwhile, new species of mushrooms are discovered now and then. One year ago, a biology student stumbled on only the second member of the mushroom genus Hericium, named Hericium ophelieae, while walking in the woods in South Africa, according to the Miami Herald.

Another newbie is the tiny Candolleomyces albosquamosus, with its distinctive honey-yellow cap. It was found on the campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Palode, India in October, The Hindu reports.

One type of mushroom called common bonnet, part of the Mycena genus, was found growing on a living thing instead of on dead or decaying organic matter like rotting wood from dead trees, CNN reports.

While not a new species, it was the first sighting of a mushroom growing on the skin of a live frog. Naturalists photographed the golden-backed frog with the tiny mushroom protruding from its side in June after observing the amphibian in a roadside pond in Karnataka, India.

The image is the only record of the rare find, as the discoverers did not take a live “specimen.” In January, the researchers shared their amazing discovery in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians.

Karthikeyan Vasudevan, chief scientist for the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Telangana, India, offered an explanation for the mushroom with a frog or vice versa.

Vasudevan theorized that a small piece of woody debris got lodged under the skin of the frog, and the mushroom sprouted from it, according to CNN.