Scientists Uncover D. Rex: Gigantic New 'King' Fungus From China Traces Its Roots to 65 Million Years
Scientists have discovered a new giant fungus species, Dianjunus rex, in China's Yunnan Province. The fungus's evolutionary history suggests it emerged shortly after the asteroid impact that caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs, potentially thriving on the abundance of dead plant matter.
Why it matters
This discovery provides new insights into how fungal ecosystems recover and evolve following global mass extinction events.
Yunnan Province in China is famous for its mushrooms and fungi, but somehow, scientists have only just come across a new species that has rightly earned the name 'king'.
Named Dianjunus rex (or D. rex for short), its gigantic, club-like fruiting bodies can grow up to 50 centimeters tall, which is about one and a half feet, or the height of a traffic cone.
But its impressive size is not the only exciting thing about this fungus. Its genes also contain clues about a major moment in the history of life on Earth.
Mycologist Indunil Senanayake of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and her colleagues describe the new species in a paper published in Frontiers in Fungal Biology .
D. rex is the only known member of its family, Dianjunaceae .
"This remarkable species… provides a rare window into the evolution of extreme fungal body forms," says Senanayake.
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