"Stinkhorn" sets off search for corpse in Germany

The odor given off by an unusually large fungus in Germany was so foul that it sparked off a police hunt for a corpse, authorities said Sunday.

A spokesman for police in the eastern city of Dresden said that following reports from local people about the smell, five officers and a sniffer dog went to investigate in a forest close to the German-Czech border.

"Then they discovered this gigantic stinkhorn," he said, referring to the fetid-smelling, oddly-shaped fungus with the Latin name Phallus impudicus. "Those things really do stink."

Police called off the search and retreated from the malodorous fungus, which German media said was over 20 cm long, much bigger than stinkhorns usually grow.

(Photo of stinkhorn fungus from Google archive)