The death cap (Amanita phalloides)—the world’s most lethal mushroom—was “once a rare European endemic,” but global freight transportation systems most likely helped it hitch a ride to North America, Argentina, South Africa, southeast Australia, New Zealand, and other places around the globe, over and over again.
This informative Life Up Close animation by The Atlantic, supported by the HHMI Department of Science Education, introduces the death cap and shares more about its spread.
Though their fragile spores degrade in sunlight, death caps thrive in warm, moist conditions—like rainy summers and autumns—under oak, beech, chestnut, birch, hornbeam, elm, and other hardwood trees. More from The Australian National University Research School of Biology:
“Death caps are mycorrhizae, a type of fungi that associates with the roots of plants, such as, in the case of death caps, broad-leafed trees… It’s an association which is beneficial to both the fungi and the tree, Professor Linde explains.
“’Because trees can photosynthesise and mushrooms can’t – because they don’t have chlorophyll –they draw photosynthates, like carbon, from the host tree.
“’In return, the mycorrhizal fungi help the tree take up nutrients, especially phosphorus, and a bit of nitrogen, and provide plants with disease resistance, drought tolerance and all that good stuff.'”
“‘Basically, mycorrhizal fungi, like death caps, actually help plants grow better…’
“It’s a beautiful natural relationship, she says, and as much part of the Canberra landscape as our oak-lined streets.
“’To me, the sad thing about death caps is that they don’t really belong here in Australia. But then we also have a lot of trees that don’t belong here, and they go together. So we have to live with it now, and educate people about these mushrooms.'”
Given its growing distribution, described as a “mushroom boom” in some regions, it’s important to be able to identify a death cap. From Insider Business:
Related reading from the BC Centre of Disease Control: Death Cap Mushrooms Fact Sheet.
Watch these handpicked videos next:
• Growing six different mushrooms from kits, a time-lapse compilation
• Fungi Matter, an animation for Kew
• Fungus: The Plastic of the Future
• How are mushroom time-lapse videos filmed? Louie Schwartzberg explains
• Mycorrhizae: A closer look at how trees “talk” with each other underground
Also: Venoms vs. Poisons
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