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The Mushroom That Hunts
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You may have eaten this mushroom. It's a hunter.
Oyster mushrooms grow on dead trees. Dead wood is mostly tough fiber, with almost no nitrogen.
But the fungus needs nitrogen to survive. So scientists think it hunts worms to get it.
Its prey: tiny worms, most too small to see.
Its threads grow tiny lollipops, packed with a worm-killing chemical.
A worm bumps one, and it bursts. In lab tests, within minutes, the worm can't move.
Then the fungus eats it. Scientists call it "nerve gas in a lollipop."
And it has been found on dead logs right here in Massachusetts.
Look, don't pick.
In late fall and early winter, look for shelf-like clusters on dead hardwood logs and stumps. Take a photo and leave them: never eat a wild mushroom, and picking isn't allowed at Mass Audubon sanctuaries.
Data: Academia Sinica (PNAS and Science Advances), Thorn and Barron (Science), UF/IFAS, Northern Woodlands, the Harvard Farlow Herbarium through GBIF, iNaturalist, and Mass Audubon.