In this particular instance, I do not know the answers to the headline’s questions.
Some fungi are “edible, generally”, some are “toxic, generally”, whilst others could be labelled as “it all depends on which fauna species attempts to eat it, and/or on how and when they eat it and/or on how much of it they eat, and/or on how they prepare it”.
If you look carefully, you can see a little fragment at the bottom, apparently broken off from the pictured coral fungus’s fruiting body.
Is it telling us that at least one fauna species does eat this particular fungus species?
(Homo sapiens is far from the only species to munch mushrooms and other fungal “fruits”)
Or is it telling us that some fauna species taste-tested it, deemed it unsafe, and then spat out the fragment?
Or did something/someone just happen to snap off the fungus fragment?
In this series’ next post, its hero’s “munched” appearance enables an observer to reach a more definite conclusion.