Thuvagia Phakasious (The Glowing Rock) is a very rare piece of Laputa Inocylon fungus in the family Alopcious. Until now, it was found only in Phong Nha cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park located in the middle of Vietnam. It grows on the edge where the cave rock meets the water of the underground river.
The fungus has the shortest fruit body which is about 0.5 to 1 centimeter tall compared to all the other funguses. However, it is wider than most of them with the widest width of 4.57 centimeters. This allows it to stick well onto the wet rock surface. The cap is thick and has the diameter of one to five centimeters (0.4-2.0 in). It mimics the color and texture of the cave rock. Therefore, it is hard to be able to spot them. Moreover, unlike most funguses, Thuvagia does not grow together in clusters. One spaces itself at least one meter away from another one.
Thuvagia fungus glows in the dark in variety of neon colors. When one starts to glow, slowly the others will too. When they glow, they release a massive amount of energy that creates a buzzing, whispering-like sound. Some scientists believe that this is a way for them to communicate. Most of the people who reported to have been there when they glow, show signs of insomnia and inability to stop their brains from remembering everything, thinking constantly and working too much. More than 70% of those people went crazy. Only a few were able to adapt. One of them is seven-year-old mathematics genius, Vo Dai Minh Anh, who has never gone to school.
Thuvagia was first discovered by a Vietnamese local named Nguyen Ai Son in 1982 but only got brought out to public awareness by a French mycologist, Absolon Benoit, in 1990 in an article published by a science newspaper, FST (French Science Today). Scientists have made countless attempts to take Thuvagia out and into the laboratory to do more research on them, but none has been successful. After leaving the water and the rock of the cave, the fungus dries out and dies immediately and turns into ashes shortly after that.