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Ethnomycological notes. II. Meteorites and fungus lore

A. M. NIEVES-RIVERAa,*, D. A. WHITEb
a

Felix Castillo St. 293, Barrio Balboa, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico 00680, U.S.A.
Atelier OntPro (Tree Care Consulting), 78 Marcella St., Toronto ON M1G 1L2, Canada

abstract
Keywords:
Ethnomycology

We have found a connection between outer space phenomenon (such as meteors and me-

Exobiology

teorites) and fungus lore revered by ancestral cultures. This is useful to ethnomycology,

Fossil fungi

studying the range of complexity and conditions in which a fungus myth was developed.

Meteors

2005 The British Mycological Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Shooting stars

In the seventeenth century an eminent Irish churchman,

Archbishop Rev. James Ussher [1581-1656] declared with enviable assurance that planet Earth was created by heavenly
forces precisely on Sunday 23 October 4004 B.C. at 9:00 a.m.
A.S.T. (Atlantic Standard Time). The Earth was merely 6,008
years old! Modern scientists have not dared to be nearly so
precise, but several lines of evidence agree as to the approximate age of the planet we live on. By analyzing rock samples
to determine the proportion of uranium decay, geologists
have measured the age of the oldest rocks known; these rocks
came from moon rocks collected by the Apollo missions and
meteoric material found on Earth. Based on this evidence,
the age of the Earth accepted today is about 4.5 billion years
(Ba) (Altschuler 2001). Herein we discuss the unusual association between meteorites and fungus lore.
Meteorites are divided into three major types, based on
their composition: iron, stone or stony-iron (Haag 1997).
Most meteors (shooting stars) burn up entirely when they enter the atmosphere (Fig. 1A). This is especially true for stones,
which are softer than irons. Either way, what survives has
a distinctive melted skin called a fusion crust (Figs 1B-D).
This crust is very important for finding and identifying meteorites. Most fresh falls will have a thin black or brown skin
covering the surface of the specimen, yet the interior will remain untouched and pristine, unaffected by its turbulent

journey (Figs 1F-H). Tons of meteoric material fall into Earth

annually, and the vast majority is never found (Haag 1997;
NEMS 1998).
During the later nineteenth and early portion of the twentieth century, an impasse existed among scientists concerning
the origins of life on earth. Accordingly, the best concept on
the subject for many years was the cosmozoic theory, which
proposed that the original spores of life arrived on earth from
deep outer space. Although unsatisfactory in failing to explain
the origins of life itself, this idea is actually difficult to disprove. The possibility of life being transported through space
from one celestial body to another accounts in part for the
elaborate precautionary measuresdmicrobiologically-speakingdtaken with spaceships and astronauts preceding and following space flights. Furthermore, the occasional reports of
amino acids and organized elements that resembled the
cyanobacteria Anabaena or Nostoc in fallen meteorites lend additional credence (Claus & Nagy 1961; Altschuler 2001). The
discovery of possible bacterial nanofossils in a 1.9 kg potatosize meteorite, named the Alan Hills Mars meteorite
(ALH84001), originally collected in Antarctica in 1984 and studied by McKay et al. (1996), Gibson et al. (1997), and Scott et al.
(1997), revives part of an old scientific debate, whether or
not life exists extraterrestrially. Until recently, the idea of
studying extraterrestrial lifeor exobiologywas treated as

* Corresponding author.
. M. Nieves-Rivera), daw@msi.net (D. A. White).
E-mail addresses: anieves@coqui.net (A
0269-915X/$ see front matter 2005 The British Mycological Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mycol.2005.11.009

Ethnomycological notes. II. Meteorites and fungus lore

23

Fig. 1 A-K. A. A meteor (shooting star) falling from the sky in 1997. B-D. Fusion crust in stone (B) and iron (C-D) meteorites.
E. Tuber sp. ascomata surface. Sectioned stony-iron meteorites (pallasites) (F-H). I-K. Sectioned ascoma of Tuber sp. (I-J) and
young basidioma of Pisolithus tinctorius (K). Scale bar: A. not to scale; B-E, G [10 cm; F, H-K [3 cm.

nonsense created by the vivid imagination of science fiction

writers, or the sensationalist UFO press.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the idea of the
transfer of microbes from one celestial body to another was
revived in the form of the so-called theory of panspermia,
originated by Swedish physicist and chemist Svante A. Arrhenius. Being a strong adherent of the concept that life is
scattered throughout universal space, he showed very convincingly, by means of direct calculations, the possibility of
transfer of small particles, including the spores of microorganisms, through interstellar and interplanetary space travelling in dust and meteorites (Oparin 1953). Even without an
alternative concept, biologists long remained aware of the
limitations of the panspermia theory, but it was not until
1936 that the conceptual vacuum was finally broken. In that
year, the Russian biochemist Alexander I. Oparin advanced
an explicit theory of how life may have arisen from inorganic
matter and why such processes are no longer possible today.

Since the appearance of his book Origin of Life, many experiments (e.g., the classical Urey-Miller spark discharge
experiment on abiogenic synthesis of amino acids) have
contributed to our knowledge of probable past events
(Altschuler 2001).
Although no one has found fungal-like spores embedded in
meteorites or star dust, the possibility still remains. However,
much is being discovered from our turbulent remote past, during which the Earth has been continuously bombarded with
cosmic debris. According to the available fossil record, fungi
are presumed to have been present in Late Proterozoic (900570 millions of years ago or Ma). Geologic dates were recalibrated after Palmer and Geissman (1999). The first undisputed
fossil record of fungi comes from the Ordovician, 490-442.9 Ma
(Blackwell 2000). These fossils, described by Redecker et al.
(2000), show aseptate hyphae and spores essentially the
same as found in extant members of the Glomales. However,
these fossil fungi were not associated with plants. Terrestrial

 . M. Nieves-Rivera, D. A. White
A

24

vascular plants did not evolve until the Silurian (443416.9 Ma), so if these early Glomalean fungi were associated
with plants, they were probably with the thalli of early bryophytes. Fossil hyphae in association with wood decay and fossil chytrids and Glomales-Endogenales representatives
associated with plants of the Rhynie Chert are reported from
the Devonian (417-353.9 Ma) in Scotland (Taylor & Taylor
1997; Taylor et al. 1997). Visscher et al. (1996) found evidence
of fungal spores and propagules at the Permo-Triassic boundary through the world, suggesting a major collapse of terrestrial
plants consistent with the climatic and atmospheric stresses
caused by this major extinction, considered the largest and
most destructive of all extinctions (96 % of sea life perished).
Fungal spores and propagules have been collected from geological formations around the globe (Graham 1962; Dilcher 1963;
Sheffy & Dilcher 1971), serving as evidence of continental drift
(Nease & Wolf 1975).
Following this line of thought, one can detect in past literature similar versions or stories relating to meteorites and fungi.
Beech (1989) studied fungus lore associated with shooting
stars. In his article, he showed that several ancient astronomical books, treatises or poems told the story that gelatinous
fungi were the actual residua of shooting stars. By using his
analogy of the slow decay of the universe by comparing a diminutive fallen star in a vast space with the slow decay of
a log by a small fungus in a big tropical jungle, then one would
conclude that shooting stars and fungi share a common image.
The fairy butter or star-jelly, Tremella lutescens Fr., a yellowish
gelatinous substance often found after a heavy rain, is one of
the favourite folklore candidates associated with meteorites.
Other members of the Tremellaceae, such as the old and
decayed basidiomata of T. fuscosuccinea (Mont.) Farlow, Auricularia delicata (Fr.) Henn., and A. auricula (Hook.) Underw., may
resemble in some way the fusion crust found on meteorites.
However, not only jelly fungi are said to fall from the sky,
but also some of the members of the gasteroid fungi and hypogeous Ascomycota (such as Tuber spp., Figs 1E, 1I-J) which resemble, morphologically, a meteorite when sliced; the
Mexican gel cup, Sarcosoma mexicana (Ellis & Holway) Pad. &
Tyl., and the Snowbank false morel, Gyromitra giga (Krombh.)
Quel., both present fruitbodies that resemble the fusion crust
mentioned above. Even a young Dye-makers false puffball,
Pisolithus tinctorius (Pers.) Coker & Couch, which forms a large
irregular club with a narrowed stem-like base submerged in
the substrate, resembles balls of horse dung or stony-iron
meteorites lying on the ground. When sliced, the peridioles
(pea-shaped chambers containing the spores) are exposed
(Fig. 1K), giving the typical appearance of a stony-iron meteorite as shown in catalogues by Haag (1997) or NEMS (1998).
Puffballs also possess magical-religious significance to
some North American Indian tribes. The Blackfoot, for instance, referred to them as fallen stars and kept them as incense to exorcise ghosts, as well as for use as tinder. They also
depicted, at the base of their teepees, representations of the
fruitbodies to ensure fire to those within (Burk 1983). Some
tribes, however, held them in superstitious awe. In Mexico,
Lycoperdon umbrinum Pers.: Pers. is known as kapxia, which
means ball, it is known in other places as jubapbich nakai
or star excrement fungus (Spooner & Lsse 1994). Another
fungus with a generic name referring to its celestial origin is

Geastrum, a name that means earthstar. The starlike shape

of the extended peridium of fruitbodies of members of the genus Geastrum for instance G. fornicatum (Huds.) Hook., could
literally be perceived to, leave the earth, an idea previously
noted by Spooner and Lsse (1994).
Throughout the British Isles rural folk once attributed
translucent jellies found in fields to celestial sources. These
gelatinous blobs were known as star jelly, rot of the stars
or star shot. The Welsh term for star rot, pwdre ser, has become an especially popular name for the phenomenon (White
2000). Consider this example from a poem:
As he whose quicker eye both trace
A false star shot to a markt place
Dos run apace
And, thinking it to catch,
A jelly up do snatch.

- Sir I. Suckling, Poems Farewell to Love - 1541

Pwdre ser probably had several causes. Some may have
been due to nodules of the cyanobacterium Nostoc, others
may have been bird vomit, and some may have been due to
fungi. Almost certainly, some of the larger slime moulds plasmodia contributed to the pwdre ser mythology (White 2000).
The association with meteors may have been due to false association, as with lightning bolts (see Nieves-Rivera 2004).
When intently searching for a fallen meteorite, people are
more likely to notice strange things on the ground (Hughes
1910).
Myxomycetes too are known by their close encounters
with humans. In 1973, residents of a small suburb in Dallas,
Texas, experienced terror at the sight of moving bright yellow
plasmodia of a myxomycete, Fuligo septica (L.) Wigg. This motile mass of protoplasm was immediately mistaken as an alien
entity in the form of microbes that was starting an invasion of
Earth (Nieves-Rivera 2003). The news kept many US citizens
spellbound and encircled the nation, similar to Orson Welles
classical radio transmission of an alien invasion on Halloweens Eve in 1938. Two myxomycetes, Enteridium lycoperdon
(Bull.) Farr and F. septica, are referred to as caca de luna or
moons excrement by the locals in the State of Veracruz in
Mexico (Nieves-Rivera 2004). Locals consume their fried immature fruiting bodies, according to Nieves-Rivera (2003).
In conclusion, one would not have expected that a connection between meteorites and fungus lore, yet we have found
evidence that outer space phenomenon (such as meteors
and meteorites) were known and revered by ancestral cultures
through fungus myths. This is useful to ethnomycology,
studying the range of complexity and conditions in which
a fungus myth was developed.

Acknowledgments
Thanks are expressed to Richard E. Schultesy and his secretary
Mary R. Gaudet (Botanical Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA), Steven L. Stephenson (Department of Biological
Sciences, Universtiy of Arkansas, AR), and Robert A. Haag
(Tucson, AZ) for providing additional information or critically
reviewing the manuscript. Figures were digitalized by Peter

Ethnomycological notes. II. Meteorites and fungus lore

Rocafort (Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto

Rico, Mayaguez, PR).

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