Fun Fungi
Posted on December 10, 2006 Comments (0)
Impudence, Thy Name is Mushroom
Fungi, on the other hand, are fundamentally alien.
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Some lurk in the Earth, spreading out over hundreds of acres. Others live inside insects, forcing them to climb to the tip of a blade of grass, so that they can shower their spores down on new victims. Instead of ingesting their food, fungi dump their digestive enzymes into their surroundings and suck up the ensuing goo. Their reproductive cycles are like labyrinths. And of the estimated 1.5 million species of fungi on Earth, scientists have identified only five percent.
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Some lurk in the Earth, spreading out over hundreds of acres. Others live inside insects, forcing them to climb to the tip of a blade of grass, so that they can shower their spores down on new victims. Instead of ingesting their food, fungi dump their digestive enzymes into their surroundings and suck up the ensuing goo. Their reproductive cycles are like labyrinths. And of the estimated 1.5 million species of fungi on Earth, scientists have identified only five percent.
Related: Microbe Types – What Are Flowers For? – How flowering plants beat the competition – Evolution in Darwin’s Finches
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