A parasitic caterpillar fungus that grows in the Himalayas has many names, according to Scientific American — yarsagumba, yarchagumba, yartsa gunba, yatsa gunbu. But we are only going to remember one name: Himalayan Viagra.
This fungus, which leeches off of Tibetan ghost moth larvae, is said to get the fellas going when boiled and consumed in tea or soup. Oh, it also cures cancer and fights fatigue. Miracle drug! (Scientific American — always with the science! — notes, “These medical claims have not been borne out scientifically.”)
As a result of its awesome properties of making everything sexy and cancer-free and sexy, this stuff is almost worth its weight in gold. (The price per gram puts its worth between silver and gold, Agence France Presse says.) And there’s a global market for it worth between $5 billion and $11 billion.
Thus, Nepalese people living in the area where the fungus grows have been making a fair bit of money harvesting and selling it. But this year, they found little to grab — a dozen or so pieces in fields where hundreds once grew. Which means less money and fewer erections. Date night in the Himalayas just got a lot less interesting.
Scientists blame overharvesting for the shortage. (It definitely wouldn’t be the first time humans ran a species into the ground because they thought it would give them a hard-on.) But climate change could play a role, too: Recently this area has gotten less snow and rain than it has in the past and suffered through higher temperatures. For aphrodisiac seekers, there’s always the option of actual Viagra. But the Nepalese communities who depend on the fungus for a big chunk of their income are simply screwed.
