It finally happened!! Tonight at a dinner thing someone asked if mushrooms were plants and I was able to unravel the giant phylogenetic tree I've been carrying around for 2 years to tell them:
Mushrooms are more closely related to animals than to plants!! 🍄
Mushrooms are more closely related to animals than to plants!! 🍄
Whoa, I was not expecting this response!! Here's an explainer on the topic: io9.gizmodo.com/5940434/why-ar…
Mushrooms are fungi - they don't make their own food through photosynthesis like plants do, they need to eat other organisms to survive.
Mushrooms are fungi - they don't make their own food through photosynthesis like plants do, they need to eat other organisms to survive.
They digest food outside their bodies - using enzymes to break down their food, and absorbing into their cells. Also, the main ingredient in their cell walls - chitin - is also found in insect exoskeletons!!!
While I had a captive audience, I also told them how the biggest organism on earth isn't a whale -- it's an aspen grove (and it might be dying) sltrib.com/news/2017/11/1…
(feel free to jump in, mycologists!!)
I don't have a soundcloud, but please check out @PlantLoveStory for stories of the plants that impact our lives!! This one is about kelp, which is also not a plant.. but much more closely related to plants :) (also plant love stories kinda has a soundcloud)plantlovestories.com/blank-2/2018/0…
My biggest regret about this tweet is that I did not use the word "unfurl".
