One hunter even sold him a large, and thus more valuable, truffle that actually was made from several truffles stuck together. This Christmas will be memorable in our family because of our friend Denny Bowman's unusually thoughtful and unique gift, a sack of crap. Denny arranged for it to be carried by messenger for 8,000 miles from Thailand to Seattle so it would arrive fresh and in time for the holidays. His gift included elephant, water buffalo, and gecko droppings. To understand my delight, you have to know that I developed a fondness for dung while attending Dr. Dan Stuntz's ascomycete class in 1980, where I learned that wonderful fungi grow on herbivore dung that is kept in a moist chamber.
Dung fungi are easy to cultivate.
Moisten a folded paper towel and put it in a 2-cup Pyrex dish. Add fresh or air-dried herbivore dung and cover the dish with its glass lid. Put it in a cool room and keep the towel moist but not wet. Every other day, examine your crop with a magnifying glass or, better still, one of PSMS's dissecting microscopes. If you want to identify your fungi, you'll need a compound microscope and some arcane literature , both of which are available from the PSMS library.