Botanical Terror: Deadly Flora and Fungi

Welcome to The Oddity Shop, Where the Bizarre is Always on Sale! This week in the Shop, Zach's talking about the wild world of Nature.

Brace yourselves for a wild ride into the fascinating and sometimes spine-chilling world of predatory flora and fungi. We're about to uncover some of nature's most captivating secrets, so prepare for the unexpected! 

In our 45th episode, we're explorations of the strange, the deadly, and the simply mind-blowing abilities of our natural world's plants and fungi.  Prepare to be enthralled by the Zombie Ant Fungus and the Oyster Mushroom, two more parasitic plants that can quite literally turn their hosts into mindless zombies! Lastly, as we delve into the world of strangler fig trees and fig wasps, we're posing a macabre question for you: if a plant had to kill you, which one would you choose? So buckle up, and get ready for this hair-raising journey through nature's oddity shop!

Reference Shout Outs: 

•  https://www.npr.org/2023/01/30/1151868673/the-last-of-us-cordyceps-zombie-fungus-real#:~:text=Ophiocordyceps%20unilateralis%2C%20otherwise%20known%20as,will%20let%20the%20fungus%20reproduce.

•      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnwb-KpPv2M – The Curious Life of Carnivorous Mushrooms

•    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/science/oyster-mushrooms-carnivorous-toxins.html

•     https://owlcation.com/stem/10-Most-Wacky-Plants-of-the-World

•    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcher_plant

•      https://www.britannica.com/plant/pitcher-plant

•   https://www.bonappetit.com/story/figs-and-wasps

Each Week at the Oddity Shop, Your Curators Kara and Zach will bring you stories from Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more!

Email Us at: OddityShopPodcast@gmail.com
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