Five Fascinating Fungi Examples 🍄 That Are Truly Amazing Interesting Examples of Fungi

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Here are five fungi examples that are truly amazing. These interesting fungi facts only represent a few of the many amazing examples of fungi species that are out there. • 0:00 Introduction • 0:22 Penicillin Mould (Penicillium rubens) • 0:52 Bakers Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) • 1:30 Lichen • 2:01 Zombie Ant Fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) • 2:32 The Blob (Physarum polycephalum) • 3:15 Other fun fungi examples and fun fungi facts • If you’re interested in learning more? Check out my sources for this video: • How this Blob Solves Mazes • • How This Blob Solves Mazes | WIRED • List of the most fascinating fungi from around the world • https://twistedsifter.com/2013/04/fas... • If you’re REALLY interested in learning more, check out this lecture from a leading mycologist: • Anne Pringle (U. Wi.) 1: Introduction... • No good conversation ever starts with the words, hey bro check out this sweet fungus! But fungi, the group of living things that includes mushrooms, moulds, yeast and lichens, are actually amazing, and frankly we couldn’t live without them. • So just because, here’s five awesome examples of fungi species that illustrate the importance of fungi to our lives and to the planet as a whole. • Our first example of an amazing Fungi is one that can cure disease, Penicillium rubens. • And if you think that sounds a lot like the first antibiotic, penicillin, you’d be right! • Our friend Penicillium is a fungi (well technically a mould) that was discovered by accident and has since saved millions of lives Antibiotics are super important. After they were discovered, average life expectancy jumped by 8 years. 8 YEARS!!! A couple of things we owe to this wonderful mould include, not dying from something as simple as a papercut, or a sore throat. • That one of the most important medical discoveries of the 20th century was discovered BY ACCIDENT from a mould that was already just floating around in the air really blows my mind • Our next amazing fungi is the bakers yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Without S. cerevisiae there’s no bread! Well, there’s SOME bread, but no pizza. Yeast is a fungi that makes dough rise and taste so delicious • Basically this yeast eats all the little sugars in the dough and farts out gas that makes the dough so light a fluffy and delicious. This yeast is also a really popular thing for scientists to study. Scientists have made huge discoveries about our own biology by studying it. Without it, our understanding of things like how cells work and how they divide would be much worse. • Next let’s talk about lichens. Lichens are one of the best examples of cooperation on our planet. You would probably recognize lichens because they grow on rocks. What you might not know is that the flaky stuff on rocks is actually a centuries old friendship between a lichen, and a tiny plant called an algae or a cyanobacteria. Basically the lichen provides structure and support, while the tiny plant turns sunlight into food through a process called photosynthesis. • Our most terrifyingly awesome example of a fungi is called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, but most people call it by its common name, Zombie Ant Fungus. It’s called Zombie Ant Fungus, because this fungus, found in some tropical rainforests, infects ants and then TAKES CONTROL OF THEIR BODIES It does so in order to compel the ant to leave its nest, and proceed to a leaf exactly 25 centimeters from the ground, an area with the perfect temperature and humidity for the fungus to thrive. If that’s not terrifyingly cool, I don’t know what is. • Our final example of an amazing fungi is called Physarum polycephalum, or just THE BLOB. And while it’s not strictly about a fungi, rather a fungus-like protist (a single celled organism like an amoeba), and it’s so cool that I had to share it. Physarum is famous because it’s a single celled organism that can do things we typically associate with higher intelligence, most notably, Physarum can find the shortest solution to a maze in search of its favourite food, an oat flake. • It solves the maze by investigating every possible solution, and then retracting its body along the shortest path to the food. It's a really cool example of how living things can solve problems without having a brain. • Everywhere you go there’s a fungus! We didn’t even mention Aseroe rubra, the Anemone Stinkhorn, which attracts flies to spread its spores by smelling like rotten meat, definitely the grossest fungi I can think of, or Lactarius indigo, the Indigo Milk Cap, which is a little blue mushroom that bleeds blue milky stuff when you scratch its skin. • There’s still so much about fungi we don’t know. It’s incredible to think about what else might be out there! Most fungi remain unclassified, only about 5% have been studied by science. This means that Fungi are still the easiest field in biology in which to make your mark, because there’s still so much left to discover.

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