I have a banana at my desk this morning. I brought it to work yesterday, and left it on the desk oevernight. The skin is starting to get dark brown and spotty, but the banana still feels firm.
When I peeled it open a few miuntes ago, I saw something unusal. There are several (4-5) long, super-fine threads radiating off the open end of the banana!
The longest is about two inches long, the others somewhat less. When I say super-fine, I mean these things are markedly less substantial than a human hair. The closest thing I can compare them to is spider web. They are standing out straight, apparently held somewhat apart (by static electricity, perhaps?)
They seem to have an extremely small corkscrew shape when I squint at them very closely. They are apparently coming off the peel itself and also from the tip of the fleshy interior part.
These look nothing like the strips and strings one normally associates with peeling a banana. I suppose they could be miraculously fine strips of banana peel, but why haven’t I seen such things before on previous bananas?
I suspect they are mold rhizomes. But the flesh of the banana is a fresh color and still firm.
Sorry I don’t have pictures.
I don’t think I’ll eat it. But I’m still curious; can anyone shed any light on what I’m seeing here?
I have no idea what it is, but I’d just like to say that instead of replying “kiss my ass” the next time someone pisses me off, I’m gonna yell “diagnose my hairy banana”. That is, if I can keep a straight face
I don’t know if this info is correct, but PeppersHere from that other (much livelier!) thread posted this:
"This is a mold from the genius type phycomyces. The long grey/silver colored fibers (which are called filamentous sporangiophores) give the mold information about things like lighting conditions, wind, and humidity, which the mold uses to determine when to drop its spores / where to allocate resources within the main mycelium (which is in the banana).
This kind of mold is very common as a primary colonizer on organic foods, and had been endearingly dubbed by the internet as ‘hairy poop mold’, due to the common location where people tend to first observe it (talking to you dog owners).