Termites Grow Giant Mushrooms In Africa That Feed Entire Families

When I first saw this photo, I wrote it off as an obvious Photoshop. Well, mushrooms can’t physically reach such sizes! The life span of fruit bodies is small, they do not have enough nutrition. And the pests will eat them earlier.

However, with these mushrooms it was not so simple. They grow to such gigantic sizes because they are cultivated…termites.

Fake photos of giant insects and plants regularly appear on the Internet. The most famous of the fakes is a 1937 photo with a giant grasshopper. Surely you have seen it on the Internet:

As for mushrooms, they are, indeed, the largest organisms in the world. But we are talking about mycelium! A mycelium that can grow for hundreds of meters and even kilometers.

The record holder was found in the USA. It occupies 37 hectares, and the mycelium weighs over 400 tons. Scientists estimate its age at 2.5 thousand years.

But only the ground part of this monster does not suffer from gigantism. These are ordinary honey mushrooms:

However, there really is a giant mushroom in nature, the terrestrial part of which grows to an impressive size. Mushroom caps grow up to a meter in diameter, and the length of the leg is 50–60 cm. The weight of an average mushroom is 2 kg. And this mushroom is edible, in Zambia several of these mushrooms can feed a family all week. And in Cameroon, these mushrooms are made into pasta.

Scientists learned about this fungus only in 1980. Although it was a popular product in African markets.

It is called termitomyces titanic (Termitomyces titanicus). And is a symbiotic.

The fact is that by themselves these mushrooms cannot survive in the wild. To grow to gigantic size, they need a lot of nutrients. And they eat only what they bring them…termites!

Termites help these fungi grow — they bring him partially digested leaves and wood. Termites also feast on special growths of the mycelium.

When some of the termites leave to establish a new colony, they take part of the spores with them. To create a mushroom plantation in a new place. The titanic Termitomyces will not be able to feed itself anyway. It’s like corn — it won’t survive in the wild, it needs to be cultivated by termites.

Most of the year termitomyces exists in the form of mycelium. And in the rainy season, their fruit bodies begin to grow sharply. Termites are indifferent to the fruit bodies of mushrooms and people willingly collect them near termite mounds.

The mushroom is considered very tasty, but it spoils quickly. Therefore, it needs to be cooked and eaten as soon as collected, or canned.