My popular lecture for Cornell’s Summer Lecture Series is available via a CyberTower webcast (too bad you can’t hear the great audience, who gamely answered my questions and laughed at my jokes).

A Visit to the Mushroom Planet

A fun new radio interview with Jenny Nelson for Science Cabaret on Air. I gave a Sci Cab presentation a few years ago with Kent Loeffler and Tim Merrick. That is not online (you just had to be there, drinking beer):

Fungus Amongus

My friend Dr. Tim Baroni and I recently gave a tag team presentation as a SUNY Cortland Community Roundtable which will soon be up as a webcast:

Fungus Among Us: Mushrooms and Molds in Our Lives (whoops, coming soon)

And the Fungi of China collection I told you about a while ago has finally gone home, to some fanfare. Here is the final installment:

Prized Mushroom Collection Returns to China (Associated Press)

More details on China chez nous.

happy mushrooming,
Kathie Hodge

I’m not a very good gardener, despite good intentions. That’s why I have a pile of bark mulch that I never got around to spreading. At first it stood as a testament to my indolence; a reminder of horticultural shame as I passed by every morning and evening. How I despised it! But then it started growing puffballs.

Not just a couple of little puffballs either, but a massive, tumorous pile of them. A burgeoning puffball eruption! At night I could hear them muttering at each other (hey, heeyy, heeeyyy) as they shouldered themselves some room to grow. They really like my mulch.

Although collectively huge, these aren’t giant puffballs, they’re just “ordinary” puffballs. They don’t need water to disperse their spores like normal mushrooms; their spores get puffed out by deer hooves, drops of rain, scampering chipmunks, and the stomping shoes of certain children I know.

Puffballs are funny fungi that seek to offend. You might know them as members of the genus Lycoperdon (we’ll revisit this later). That name derives from the Greek words for wolf and fart. (Yes, I said fart on the internet. Sorry Mom). More about farts and the names of puffballs in many languages in the famous book, Mushrooms, Russia, and History, which you’ll want to read. I’ve never smelled a wolf fart, and I suspect one should generally avoid getting close to a farting wolf. One shouldn’t inhale the puffs of these puffballs either. To do so would be to risk lycoperdonosis (which I guess translates to wolf fart disease). There aren’t too many documented cases of this, it’s not like you can get it from a single stomp. But poofing some puffballs right into your nose will do it. A generous lungful of spores will result in breathing trouble, fever, and pulmonary damage. These symptoms can take months to clear, but as far as I can tell, they appear to arise from hypersensitivity and inflammation rather than fungal growth in the lungs. You will not be eaten by puffballs as if you were a big mulch pile.

Lycoperdon might be one of the coolest fungus names ever (cast your vote here!). But alas, my mulch puffballs are no longer Lycoperdons. You see, mycology is in the midst of the biggest revolution since Elias Fries sorted and named everything (C.H. Persoon was a help too, particularly amongst the puffballs). We’re using genetic information to sort things out now. These puffballs turn out to be genetically distant cousins of the true Lycoperdon species (like L. perlatum). They’re morphologically different too, and they like to eat wood more than other Lycoperdons. Different enough that Kreisel and Krüger have moved our mulch puffballs into the genus Morganella, where they can hang out with closer kin. So now we must learn to call these wood-eating, often pear-shaped puffballs Morganella pyriformis.

Now a word for you, you mulch people. You are better gardeners than me; I admire your lovely, tidy gardens, your muddy knees. You are thinking about writing to me, aren’t you? To ask how to kill the puffballs that are eating your mulch? So it’s back to basics then: What’s mulch for? A cover for your lovely rich soil that you have worked so hard to build. It cuts down on erosion, suppresses weeds, maintains moisture, and… and what? Provides nutrients for your pretty little plants as it breaks down to form humus. So don’t ask me how to get rid of puffballs. They are breaking down your mulch (a euphemism for eating it), but in the process they are feeding your plants and building your soil. The puffballs are your friends. If you really don’t want your mulch to break down, try plastic. But unsubscribe me from your fan club.

To sum up: Coolest name ever, but this lignicolous species has been exiled from the wolf farts. Snorting them leads to lycoperdonosis, which I suppose is a misnomer if we’re Morganella now. Stomping is fun; hold your breath. Mulch people: love thy mushrooms. Puffballs, eat your mulch.

“The fungus you want in your walls.” Now that’s a phrase I’m sure you never thought you would hear. With the threat of certain fungal species associated with sick building syndrome becoming an increasingly common concern… who wants fungus in their walls? Well the minds behind Ecovative Design are intent on convincing the world that everyone should have fungus in their walls, and in their packaging. From what I’ve read, I’d have to agree and I’d like to share what I’ve learned with all of you.

Ecovative Design is exactly what its name suggests; a company using ecological knowledge and innovative techniques to design eco-friendly substitutes for common products. Ecocradle® Packaging is a green alternative to traditional styrofoam packaging and Greensulate® is an alternative to traditional insulation for housing. The company was launched in 2007 by two graduates of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre. Their idea of changing the way common materials are made has become a working reality through all of the grants they have won. I find their achievements and ingenuity impressive. It takes a lot of hard work and unique thinking to create and run a company with an ambitious goal, especially in this economic climate.²

Ecovative Design’s products use natural ingredients to grow biodegradable alternatives to insulation and Styrofoam packaging. In their products, bulking agents–husks and hulls of various commonly grown food stuffs–are held together by fungal mycelia. The idea to bind natural products together this way was sparked by an interest in the way fungi bound wood chips. It was a simple observation, but it opened a curious mind to new possibilities. It turns out that the use of a fungus is key to the production process. The enzymes that the fungus secretes and the filamentous structure of mycelium convert lignocellulosic waste into a cohesive product. By maintaining a controlled micro-environment Ecovative Design can grow their products in an approximately week long process. The versatility of fungal enzymes allows for many different types of husks and hulls to be used in the production process, allowing for specialization in production based on region. Cotton hulls can be used in one region where they are a common waste product; soy growing regions can exploit soybean hulls. Ecovative Design looks to not only produce a green product, but to make the whole process as eco-friendly as possible.²

Ecovative Design’s products are made possible by the unique way that fungi grow. The growth of mycelium is key. Their fungus belongs to the phylum Basidiomycota (a group you know, since it includes mushrooms, bracket fungi, and stinkhorns, among others). The company specifically uses a fungus capable of producing dimitic or trimitic hyphae. These types of fungi contain two or three different types of hyphae respectively (which fungus? that’s proprietary info). The different types of hyphae give the growing fungus different characteristics, such as increased thickness or strength. All fungi create generative hyphae, but some can also make skeletal hyphae or binding hyphae.¹

In case you were thinking of your spore allergies: The fungi are rendered inert, unable to continue to grow or produce allergenic spores, by a key step in Ecovative Design’s production process. The production and stabilization of Greensulate® and Ecocradle® prevents the fungi from producing spores.²

I’m sure you’re also concerned about how the Greensulate® handles traditional standard tests for insulation products. This I found really interesting. Greensulate® stands up better to fire damage than traditional insulation. This can be seen in a snippet of an interesting video that Ecovative Design made for the Google 10^100 Project. But dried basidiomycete mycelia are highly combustible, so how is Greensulate® fire retardant? It’s the bulking agents within the insulation rather than the fungus that makes the product fire retardant. The bulking agents, a combination of rice husks, buckwheat hulls, and cottonseed hulls, have a naturally high silica content that prevents the product from burning readily. The Greensulate® product also meets current standards for flood damage and behaves similarly to lumber in these tests. One test found that the material absorbed less than 8% water by mass while maintaining structural integrity. Greensulate® also performs similarly to lumber in tests of resistance to fungal growth. The ability of Greensulate® to resist fungal growth is achieved by the addition of a boride solution, but less is necessary in Greensulate® than in traditional cellulose insulation.²

I’m thinking Ecovative Design is definitely on the right track. It’s exciting to see young entrepreneurs putting fungus to good use in a new way, and I hope to hear more about this company in the future. Keep on the lookout for more news about Ecovative Design, as they continue to win grants and awards for their eco-friendly and innovative ways. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for people to be excited to have fungus in their walls and as an alternative to petroleum-based packaging.

To many of us the fungus is a strange and elusive organism, mysteriously appearing from its substrate, and then suddenly disappearing back into the mass from which it arose. The diversity of fungal shapes and sizes combined with the wide array of substrates from which they fruit, has often created the illusion that fungi come and go as they please. However, with a little knowledge about the biology and ecology of these organisms, one can often capture and cultivate a fungus found growing in the wild.

The first step to growing your fungus is obtaining a specimen. You can culture molds if you like, but I’m betting that most of you are more interested in growing mushrooms. Find a fresh mushroom that hasn’t begun to show any signs of decay–younger mushrooms are preferred, as the fungus is still actively growing. Typically mushrooms must be cultured within 24 to 48 hours of being picked, and until you can get to them it’s a good idea to store them in your refrigerator. I have chosen to culture this prime specimen of Hypholoma sublateritium, which I found growing in a nearby forest (see our previous story on this “edible?” fungus).

Now you will want some tools. These include a bottle of alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol), some matches, a scalpel, a pair of tweezers or forceps (finer is better), and a few Petri dishes of potato dextrose agar (PDA). PDA is kind of like Jell-O™ made from boiled potato water. Instead of gelatin (which most fungi can digest), indigestible agar creates the gelatinous nature of this substance, and the potato water and sugar serve to feed the fungus as it grows in culture (you can make PDA yourself^1,2 with some potatoes and sugar, agar you buy from an Asian grocer, some mason jars, and a pressure cooker as a sterilizer). While you’re gathering tools, don’t forget a notebook. It is also a good idea to record some notes about your fungus, include where and when you found it, what it was growing on, and any other characteristics that seem unique or important. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you forget this type of information if you don’t record it, and how useful it can be in identifying your fungus.

One of the greatest difficulties of culturing any fungus is dealing with contaminants. Contaminants are weeds–other organisms that want to get in your Petri dishes so they can eat your media first. Fungal spores and bacteria spores are so small that a cubic meter of air may contain thousands of them. That’s why it is very important to work in a clean environment with still air, and to sterilize your tools before use. Some people make a special “glove box” designed to provide a pocket of clean air, but this isn’t a necessity. Although your Petri dishes of PDA must be sterilized in a pressure cooker or autoclave, many of your other tools can quickly be sterilized by dipping them in alcohol and then flaming it off with a match or lighter.

Once you have gathered all of your supplies and are ready to work, the first thing you must do is sterilize your tool of choice: at left I am flaming the remaining alcohol from my tweezers. Immediately after this, use your fingers to tear the mushroom in half, exposing its internal tissue. Be sure not to cut the mushroom open with a blade, as this will drag contaminants from the outer surface of the mushroom to the more sterile tissue within it.

Now use the tweezers to pluck a teeny tiny piece of tissue from the newly revealed inside of the stem or cap, and then quickly place it in the center of your Petri dish. Seal the dish with tape or parafilm, and voila! you have captured your fungus in culture. The mycelium that will grow from your tiny piece is a genetically identical to the parent mushroom. You may have inadvertently captured a few other things, too, so I like to set up three or four dishes–this way I am more likely to get a culture without any contaminants.

Within several days to a week you should begin to see the first signs of growth, as mycelium grows outward from the piece of tissue in the dish. You’ll want to transfer a teeny tiny chunk taken from the edge of that colony to a new Petri dish, to make sure it’s contaminant-free. The appearance of this mycelium varies greatly depending on the species of fungus that you are culturing. This can make it difficult to spot contaminants if it is your first time culturing that species. Any colony that arises elsewhere on the plate is probably a contaminant that arose from a single spore deposited in air. Slimy, mucusy colonies might be yeasts or bacteria. Anything blue or green is most unwelcome.

Capturing your fungus in culture is the first, essential step in mushroom cultivation. I hope we’ll talk more about this another time, but for now I’ll refer you to an expert: If you are interested in learning more about mushroom tissue culture and the contaminants you will encounter, The Mushroom Cultivator, by Paul Stamets, is a great book.

Lactarius helvus is a milky cap of the family Russulaceae, and occurs widely throughout North America and also Europe. It generally grows in boggy, mossy areas and is probably mycorrhizal with coniferous trees. It has some easily identifiable characteristics. This milky cap releases a watery and colorless latex that does not stain the flesh of the mushroom. The whole mushroom has a distinct scent reminiscent of curry or maple syrup. Although this odor is sometimes weak in young specimens it becomes more pungent upon drying. Is it toxic? Some authors report this mushroom in North America to be mildly poisonous while others claim that it is edible (but see below!).

In 1979 Hesler and Smith began calling this mushroom Lactarius aquifluus Peck, instead of using the older name Lactarius helvus. Michael Kuo has provided a fine explication of this name confusion. Let’s call it L. helvus for now, but should our North American species turn out to be different from its European cousin, L. aquifluus will be back in style.

The distinct smell of Lactarius helvus comes from a cyclic ester called sotolon (or 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5H)-furanone, if you must know). Sotolon is a powerfully aromatic compound, and is a highly recognizable characteristic of Lactarius helvus. At high concentrations sotolon smells strongly of curry or fenugreek, and at lower concentrations it smells like maple syrup or caramel. As L. helvus mushrooms are dried their odor tends toward fenugreek. A number of foods, including lovage, molasses, rum, and roast tobacco also contain sotolon. It is a component of some wines that develops with aging–it is especially pronounced in French vins jaunes, sherries, Port wines, and botryotized white wines like Sauternes. When oenophiles (wine geeks) smell sotolon, it suggests to them that the wine is well-aged.

In Europe, Lactarius helvus is considered mildly toxic. If large quantities are eaten raw, symptoms can occur. On average it takes 15 minutes to 1 hour for signs of poisoning to appear: These include vomiting, copious diarrhea, and sweating. In Leipzig, Germany in 1949 an estimated 418 people were poisoned by Lactarius helvus. This group of people experienced nausea, vomiting, abdominal pains, salivation, vertigo, diarrhea, disability, and a cold feeling. All survived. Although not much is known about the toxin in Lactarius helvus, it is definitely not sotolon. Some speculate that the toxic component is a sesquiterpene. It appears to become inactive upon boiling (or perhaps it is leached out). In northern Europe this mushroom is sometimes dried and used in small quantities as a spice (a practice which wise Dr. Benjamin says is “ill-advised”).

Editor’s Note: Despite its drab colors, Lactarius helvus is one of the milky caps that ordinary muggles like me can identify–because of its odor. There are very many Lactarius species–Hesler and Smith treated over 200 in North America. A few other milky caps are distinctive, such as the lovely Lactarius indigo (yep, it’s blue), but often Lactarius species are tough to identify. That’s why we can all be excited about a forthcoming book, Milk Mushrooms of North America: A Field Identification Guide to the Genus Lactarius by A.E. Bessette, D.B. Harris, and A.R. Bessette (Syracuse Univ. Press 2009). I haven’t seen it yet–it’s due out in Fall 2009. I can hardly wait!

Although I grew up equidistant from a large woodland and the local grocery store, I never would have thought that they contained some of the same products. The woods had carefully marked trails and swimming holes, the supermarket carefully marked bins of produce and even mushrooms. But the second week of my Field Mycology class, I collected my first bolete, something I’d thought I could only buy dried at my supermarket. The process of finding and eating boletes is much different in the wild than it is in civilization, so I’ll describe the path from the forest to the mouth for a delicious bolete.

The most coveted boletes belong to the Boletus edulis group (right), and are rarely found fresh in stores; generally only dried boletes appear. Unlike white button mushrooms, boletes are not saprobes that can grow on compost; they are mycorrhizal, forming relationships with trees. Due to the expense and complications of trying to cultivate a mushroom with a specific tree, there has been little success, so boletes are always collected from the wild, making them uncommon and expensive in supermarkets. However, the good news for collectors is that because they are mycorrhizal (symbiotic with certain trees), they will recur in the same places each year.

Because boletes are mostly water, dried boletes barely resemble fresh ones. While the dried boletes appear very similar to other dried mushrooms, fresh boletes are thick and fleshy, and distinct from other mushrooms because they have a thick sponge of tubes (often yellow) on the underside of the cap, instead of gills. However, although it is generally easy to recognize a mushroom as a bolete, identifying your bolete to species can be more difficult. This is an important step, because many boletes are either poisonous, or simply not pleasant to eat. (In France, pharmacists will check your mushrooms for you–all are trained in mycology).

My first bolete was Boletus parasiticus (at left). This mushroom is easily identified because it grows out of an earthball (Scleroderma sp.). Although it is not poisonous, one should be careful before eating it because the earthball is poisonous, and has powdery, easily distributed spores. Choice mushrooms from the genus Boletus include B. appendiculatus, B. regius, B. badius, B. erythropus, B. mirabilis, and B. zelleri. Other good edibles are found in other bolete genera, including Suillus, Leccinum, and others. Some are not so good, including, for example, the bitter boletes of the genus Tylopilus, (below) which will give you a belly ache, Boletus satanus and allies (anything named after the devil is likely to be poisonous), and a fatally poisonous Australian species of Rubinoboletus. [Editor's note: don't try to identify your boletes based on our story--consult a more comprehensive source like Michael Kuo's MushroomExpert.com, or Bessette et al.'s big bolete book²]

Once the mushrooms have been properly identified, it’s time to begin preparing them. Boletes rot quickly; any wet and mushy undersides or insect-filled stems should be discarded. The hard or fibrous stem of an older bolete should also be removed. The best boletes are small and firm. The choicest specimens can be served raw, thinly sliced with lemon juice and oil. However, there are a variety of cooking methods to best showcase the meaty flavor of boletes.

The classic French method includes three stages. First, the mushrooms are partially dried in the oven to remove some of the water. Then, they are stored in the exuded liquid, so that the flavor is not leached away. Finally, they are sauteed, to brown and cook them.

And though I may have seemed to disparage dried boletes as very unlike fresh boletes, dried boletes are not inferior. In fact, the distinct change that takes place during drying is seen by many as an improvement. The enzyme action and browning reactions that take place during drying give the dried bolete a powerful taste that can be used to infuse many foods with its umami flavor. And they last as long as a year.

Dried boletes should first be soaked for 30 minutes, and as with fresh boletes, the liquid is highly flavorful. When the rehydrated boletes are sauteed, they will have more flavor if they are cooked with the liquid. Although the texture of these are lacking, they are excellent for adding flavor to soups, or as flavoring in salads or meats. One interesting suggestion is to add a small amount of dried boletes to ordinary cultivated white mushrooms to give the dish a much richer and deeper flavor.

No matter how you eat ‘em, boletes will give your food a meaty and earthy flavor reminiscent of the forest they came from.

If you studied the traditional sort of biology, you’re probably carrying around an unfortunate prejudice.

You see terrestrial habitats as a simplified nutrients-and-energy pyramid. At the bottom are green plants, feeding on sunlight, carbon dioxide and soil water and minerals. Next layer up on the pyramid is the herbivore mob: leaf and stem eaters, sapsuckers, root nibblers, seed and fruit gobblers. Above these green feeders are a couple of layers of predators. And that about sums up the world, right?

Wrong. That’s only part of the world, and a small, very specialised part of it, too. To begin with, most animals can’t eat green food. Herbivores are dietary specialists among the insects, mollusks, birds and mammals. Your average green leaf or stem doesn’t show much herbivore damage, and for good reason. It’s mainly water boxed in by cellulose and other structural carbohydrates, which are impossible or extremely hard for animals to digest. Other nutrients are present, but at low concentrations. You need to eat a great mass of indigestible green stuff to get a decent return of elements like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium. As for animals eating wood, which makes up most of the biomass in a forest – well, there are termites, and…um…termites…

The truth is that in the real world outside the biology classroom, only a tiny proportion of terrestrial primary production goes through the stomachs of the few evolutionary lineages brave enough to tackle what green plants produce. In any terrestrial habitat, the great bulk of primary production just does *not* get eaten. It sits, instead, at the bottom of a very different food pyramid. I call it the Dead Plants Society (DPS), as opposed to the Green Feeders Guild (GFG).

In the absence of fire, all that uneaten primary production is first attacked by fungi and bacteria. By ‘attacked’ I mean ‘converted from low-nutrient indigestibles to concentrated yummies’, i.e. fungal and bacterial bodies. Stacked on top of this microbial layer in the pyramid are microbivorous layers of nematodes, mites, springtails, earthworms, millipedes and other soil animals. On top of those are predators – but picture ‘centipede’, not ‘eagle’.

The GFG and DPS animal communities differ in many ways. To begin with, in any given habitat the GFG has very high species diversity (think of plant-eating insects) but low higher-taxon diversity, while the DPS has great higher-taxon diversity (lots of strange sorts of animals), but low species diversity. Next, GFG herbivores tend to specialise on particular plants, while DPS microbivores will eat anything that’s rotting nicely. There are also a lot of winged GFG members (’gotta find that particular plant I like…’), whereas almost no DPS members have wings, at least in their younger, feeding stages. There’s an architectural difference, too. The GFG extends well up in the air, to ca. 100 m in some tall forests, while the DPS is largely confined to the ground.

Then there’s the matter of heritage. The earliest DPS fossils are of mites, springtails and millipedes, and they’re more than 400 million years old, from a time when terrestrial vegetation was mainly mossy and ground-hugging. The first solid evidence for green feeding (early insects with spores in their guts) appears much later in the fossil record, from coal swamp times. The DPS is vastly older than the GFG, and when you handle richly organic soil you’re holding animal communities which are spectacularly ancient and robust. You can almost imagine a springtail thinking: ‘Seen the dinosaurs come and go, mammals are nearly done. Wonder what great lumbering dopes we’ll see in the next 100 million years? Yum, love these hyphae with yeast sprinkles!’

Almost everyone has been to a museum like The Smithsonian and seen firsthand the relics of our planet’s evolutionary past. Most of the fossils we find belonged to creatures that have long been extinct, but many of those bear a striking resemblance to organisms we share the earth with today. As with the fossilized remains of plants and animals with which most of us are familiar, fungi that existed millions of years ago have also been preserved and can be studied by paleomycologists — that special breed of mycologist who studies fungi in the fossil record.

Some of the most fantastical discoveries of ancient fungi have been in amber. Amber comes from certain species of trees whose sap was able to resist decay and weathering, and thus hardened and became fossilized over millions of years. Anything (including fungi!) that became trapped within the sap before it hardened became completely preserved– just like a time capsule. Amber deposits exist worldwide, but two of the most important are on the coast of the Baltic Sea and in the Dominican Republic. Both of these deposits differ greatly in age: Baltic amber dates around 35-55 million years old during the Eocene, or at about the time that the first modern mammals appeared, whereas Dominican amber is from the Miocene (about 15-20 million years old), making it about half the age of Baltic amber.¹ This important age difference gives us snapshots of two completely separate periods in our planet’s history, a real boon for evolutionary biologists.

Many insightful discoveries have been made about what fungi were like millions of years ago. It seems that while many of the fungi that existed back then clearly differ from the ones that exist today, the fungi of today bear a striking physical resemblance to their ancestors. And from what we can tell, it seems that ancient fungi walk the same walk and talk the same talk as their modern counterparts, too. Many fungi are parasites — of plants, of insects, and even of each other. So, it is not surprising that we should find them doing the same things in the fossil record.

One of the more well-preserved specimens of a fungus in amber comes from a piece of Baltic amber that contains a springtail (an arthropod closely related to insects) which is likely being parasitized by Aspergillus collembolorum, a previously undescribed species. The sporulating fungus is so well-preserved that the individual conidiophores (spore-bearing structures), complete with conidia (spores), can be clearly seen erupting from all over the body of the springtail. Using these physiological characters, it was placed in the modern genus Aspergillus, whose species are primarily saprophytic. However, some species are known to be facultative parasites of insects. Because A. collembolorum is the only fungus on the springtail, as well as the fact that the springtail was not decomposing when it was trapped, it is likely that the Aspergillus was acting as a parasite and not a saprophyte.² Investigating fungi trapped in amber is almost like figuring out what happened to a victim in CSI, since you have to follow the clues from what happened at the time of death to really figure what the fungus was doing, its identity, and perhaps even how it lived.

There have been some other remarkable finds of parasitic fungi of insects in amber. In Dominican amber, a mosquito was found with several types of parasitic fungi growing on its outside cuticle. What is interesting is that the fungi resemble modern day fungi in class Trichomycetes, which are common gut-inhabiting zygomycetes of insects, but they differ from Trichomycetes in that the fungi are on the outside of the insect rather than the inside. If the fungi are indeed Trichomycetes, this could be important for figuring out when the ability to live in insects’ guts was acquired in the lineage.³ Another interesting find, this time in Baltic amber, is of a parasitic fungus consisting of four club-shaped fruiting structures erupting out of the thorax of a stalk eyed fly. What’s really neat is that the fungus physiologically closely resembles a modern day Laboulbeniales, which are obligate parasites of insects and are often very host-specific. Since the fungus was found on a fly, it was able to be placed in the modern genus Stigmatomyces, which is specific to flies. This fossil, which is the oldest record of an insect-parasitic fungus, shows that these host-specific insect pathogenic fungi have existed for tens of millions of years.^4,5

Now probably one of the coolest fungal finds in amber has to be from a piece of Burmese amber dating to about 100 million years old, or around the time when the dinosaurs were in their heyday. Within this piece of amber is a fungus parasitizing a fungus that is parasitizing yet another fungus. You heard me right: three fungi eating and being eaten by one another. I should also probably mention that the piece of amber in which this was all found is itself smaller than a grain of rice! In the amber is the cap of the basidiomycete Palaeoagaracites antiquus, whose gills are covered by the hyphae of the mycoparasite Mycetophagites atrebora. And amazingly, inside of the hyphae of that mycoparasite are the hyphae of the hypermycoparasite Entropezites patricii. All three fungi were described as new genera and species from this single sample. The specimen is so well-preserved that portions of P. antiquus’s gills appear to be liquefying from toxins released by M. atrebora. Nowadays such complex and sophisticated levels of parasitism are known amongst fungi, but the fact that they were so well-established some 100 million years ago is simply astonishing.⁶

But really, why do we even care about all of this? Knowing what kinds of fungi were out there and getting a glimpse of what they were doing millions of years ago is vital to the understanding of the evolutionary histories of the species we have around today. While we may have a good understanding of the relationships between many plants and animals, we know relatively little about the true evolutionary history and relationships of most fungi. A recent phylogenetic study using highly conserved DNA has shown that the morphological characters–primarily those of fruiting bodies–that we use to identify fungi are far from perfect at revealing the true evolutionary relationships between groups. It’s become quite clear that some traits once considered to be homologous, like the presence of gills or an enclosed sac-like fruiting body, have evolved multiple times in different phylogenetic lines, making them analogous and not homologous traits.⁷ By “filling in” the blank spaces of the past with clues from fossilized fungi, we can develop a better understanding of not only how long fungi have been filling certain ecological roles, but also when major fungal lineages diverged. Through the differences between ancient fungi and their modern counterparts, we can start to grasp when certain traits evolved and ultimately learn about the true evolutionary relationships among modern fungal taxa.

Kent Loeffler and I are headed up to Rochester, NY on Monday to give a presentation on our explorations of fungal photography using a borescope. Should be awfully interesting to talk to a mix of optics professor types and mushroom-lovers. We’ll bring part of our borescopic art show along, and also, ta da! Our new self-published book, Beneath Notice: Adventures with a borescope.

Since I am not the first author and can therefore cast humility aside, let me tell you that this is a beautiful book. Not only are the small fungi it features surprising and lovely in their own right, but the book design by Noni Korf is strong and handsome. The book is essentially a catalog of two years of our well-received art shows. It includes all Kent’s borescope photos from our shows (with a few bonus additions), along with wry and moderately informative captions by me, Kathie Hodge. There’s a brief explication of borescopy and the trials of using a borescope in the field. Apparently few have bothered to to use a borescope to capture beauty; the borescope has previously been relegated to inspecting gun barrels, fuel injectors, moldy walls and the insides of people’s knees. It’s a 90 page, softcover book and I respectfully submit that it’d make a good gift for anyone fond of fungi or intrigued by life on a smaller scale. You can order it from Lulu Press, right here.

Order Beneath Notice: Adventures with a borescope., $33.50