At first glance, it looked like some kind of oversized, leathery egg sitting in the soil. But what happened next left onlookers stunned — and a little unnerved.

As the “egg” began to split open, something bizarre emerged: long, red-pink tentacles, covered in blackish slime and dotted with pimple-like textures, began to claw their way out, stretching toward the sky like alien limbs. It looked more like a creature from a sci-fi horror movie than anything you’d expect to find in a backyard.

What the man had discovered wasn’t an egg at all — it was Clathrus archeri, a rare and eerie-looking fungus better known as “devil’s fingers”.

Native to New Zealand, Tasmania, and parts of Australia, this surreal-looking fungus grows in a unique way. Unlike typical mushrooms thatt rise from the earth as caps and stalks, devil’s fingers develop inside a soft white sac that closely resembles an egg. When it “hatches,” the sac tears open, revealing between four to eight finger-like arms that slowly unfurl. Their appearance is both mesmerizing and grotesque.