Amanita phalloides is SO NUTRITIOUS that eating a single bite is enough to FEED YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, which, in practical terms, is about 6-8 hours on average.
(this is the death cap mushroom, which has a 50% case fatality rate, please do not eat.)
The amatoxin contained in the Amanita phalloides completely inhibits your cells' ability to make new RNA, resulting in apoptosis of virtually every cell in your body.
Survival rate with advanced treatment is still only ~50%.
The amatoxins are remarkably dangerous:
They're water-soluble, freeze-resistant, heat-resistant, and present in every tissue of the fungus.
You can die from just putting them in the same basket with edible mushrooms (spores contain the amatoxin), cooking in water that has come in contact with them.
At various stages of fruiting body growth, the death cap can resemble puff balls or straw mushrooms, so that amateur fungus-hunters are taking an awful risk in area where Amanita are found.
Reminder of the old saying:
All mushrooms are edible. Some are only edible ONCE.
This is apparently the closest relative in NC--super common in the Piedmont including our lab--we called them all fungi when the kids were little to avoid any connection with an edible mushroom
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita...
Ah. How sad to see a big red 'introduced' dot parked right over my area. There are some local mushroom foragers who turn up at my farmer's market. I won't be risking that anymore. BTW, the info about the levels of toxicity is just amazing! Thx for sharing it.
Fascinating. Are there other organisms that are immune? That's SUCH a fundamental process to Life that it sort of feels like they've... created a new biochemistry incompatible with and anathema to the preexisting one.
Death incarnate.
Only the fruiting bodies are really exposed to big vertebrate consumers, so my guess is that it doesn't need to offer aposematic warning, because eating the mushroom portion just decreases spore production.
I think there's more survival advantage in killing grubs/worms? Not sure.
I took a course on mushrooms, because I wanted to collect and eat them. The course frightened me so much that the only mushrooms I collect are store bought.
