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iNat·179202SpeciesFungi55 field observations
  1. Fungi Including Lichens
  2. ›Ascomycete Fungi
  3. ›Sac Fungi and Lichens
  4. ›Sordariomycetes
  5. ›Hypocreomycetidae
  6. ›Hypocreales
  7. ›Ophiocordycipitaceae
  8. ›Ophiocordyceps
Chinese Caterpillar Fungus
Plate 1 of 2. (c) Rosino, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA) · via iNaturalist
IUCN VU · Vulnerable

Chinese Caterpillar Fungus

Ophiocordyceps sinensis

Ophiocordyceps sinensis (formerly known as Cordyceps sinensis), is known in English colloquially as caterpillar fungus, or by its more prominent names yartsa gunbu (Tibetan: .mw-parser-output .uchen{font-family:"BabelStone Tibetan Slim",Jomolhari,"Noto Sans Tibetan","Microsoft Himalaya",Kailash,"DDC Uchen","TCRC Youtso Unicode","Tibetan Machine Uni","Qomolangma-Uchen Sarchen","Qomolangma-Uchen Sarchung","Qomolangma-Uchen Suring","Qomolangma-Uchen Sutung","Qomolangma-Title","Qomolangma-Subtitle","DDC Rinzin","Qomolangma-Woodblock","Qomolangma-Dunhuang"}.mw-parser-output .ume{font-family:"Qomolangma-Betsu","Qomolangma-Chuyig","Qomolangma-Drutsa","Qomolangma-Edict","Qomolangma-Tsumachu","Qomolangma-Tsuring","Qomolangma-Tsutong","TibetanSambhotaYigchung","TibetanTsugRing","TibetanYigchung"}དབྱར་རྩྭ་དགུན་འབུ་, Wylie: dbyar rtswa dgun 'bu, literally "summer grass, winter worm"), or dōng chóng xià cǎo (Chinese: 冬蟲夏草) or Yarsha-gumba or Yarcha-gumba, यार्सागुम्बा (in Nepali language) or Keeda Jadi, or ရှီးပတီး (in Burmese language). It...

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Where it lives

Recorded sightings

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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.

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In the old herbals & bestiaries

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Every page naming Ophiocordyceps sinensis in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →

This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 179202.