Caterpillar Fungus: The Viagra Of The Himalayas. In the produce aisle at your local grocery story, button mushrooms go for about $4 a pound, Shitakes cost about twice that, and black truffles can run $800 a pound. But that's nothing compared to a rare Asian fungus that sells for $50,000 a pound.
In English, it's called caterpillar fungus. But it's better known throughout Asia by the Tibetan term, yartsa gunbu, which means "summer grass, winter worm."
Britt Bunyard, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and editor of Fungi Magazine, explains that this fungi (Cordyceps Sinensis) makes its living by getting inside a host insect and ultimately killing and consuming it. In this case, the insect that's invaded is the caterpillar of the ghost moth.
"This caterpillar will bury itself down a couple inches into the soil. Meanwhile it doesn't know it, but this fungus is digesting it from within and then in the spring this ... tissue erupts out the head."
It may sound gross, but he says this pinky-sized mummified caterpillar is the most expensive fungi in the world.
"The price doesn't compare to other fungi; the price compares to things like gold and platinum and diamonds."
So what makes it so pricy? Well, it's also known as the Viagra of the Himalayas.