On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:44:34 -0500, Kathleen wrote:

> Gloria P wrote:
>
>> Kathleen wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It was a smooth silver gray oval, maybe two inches long by an inch and
>>> a half wide, sort of a cabochon in shape, perhaps 3/8" thick at the
>>> center, thinner at the perimeters.
>>>
>>> It lifted away cleanly from the corn when pried up with the edge of a
>>> spoon. The Thing bore the imprint of the corn kernels on its
>>> underside, the corn itself was unmarked.
>>>
>>> I cut it in half lengthwise (to the accompaniment of more yelps and
>>> squeals) and the texture was smooth and uniform all the way through.
>>> No sign of internal structure or organs or any other gooshy stuff that
>>> you might expect from any sort of larva. Cut it again crossways,
>>> nothing but more of the same.
>>>
>>> Shrugged, tossed it in the trash to be followed, at the girls'
>>> insistence, by the host ear of corn.
>>>
>>> My impression was of some sort of fungus or mushroomy thing, but the
>>> corn fungus images turned up on a google search looked nothing like
>>> what we'd found.
>>>
>>> Never seen anything like it before or since.
>>>
>>
>> Did you google huitlacoche or corn smut?
>
> Yeah. It looked like some sort of fungus but it didn't really match up
> to either the pictures or descriptions of corn smut. Like I said, it
> lifted away easily - didn't seem to be part of the corn itself, which is
> what you see with smut. And it wasn't black inside, it was gray. Maybe
> it was immature, or just some sort of atypical variant.

you may just have saved the world from the invasion of the corncob
snatchers!

your pal,
kevin