“Mushrooms – Killers”: And yet Pleurotus kill worms and eat them

Pleurotus mushrooms, a delicious and classic choice either as a side dish or even as a main meal for vegetarians and beyond, seem to have a little-known unexpected property discovered by experts.

The fungus that produces them paralyzes and kills the nematodes using a nerve-targeting gas before sucking them inside the mushrooms for food.

As New Scientist notes, the famous mushrooms are actually the reproductive structures – or fruiting bodies – of the fungus Pleurotus ostreatus.

We’ve known since the 1980s that this fungus preys on these kinds of tiny roundworms, but how it does this has been a mystery until now.

Yen-Ping Hsueh of the Academia Sinica research institute in Taiwan and her colleagues had concluded that the mushroom contains tiny lollipop-shaped structures that open when the worms press their heads against them.

Now they have determined that these structures rupture and release a gas that is highly toxic to the worms’ nervous system.

This gas is called 3-octanone.

So they exposed four different species of nematodes to this chemical.

The substance caused a massive influx of calcium ions into their nerve and muscle cells, leading to rapid paralysis and death.

After the fungus kills its prey, structures grow inside the worm’s body to absorb its contents.

“Possibly because this is how they receive nitrogen, an element that is insufficient in rotten wood where the fungus mainly grows,” the scientists estimate.

In any case, this “killing property” of the delicious mushroom should not worry people, as its toxic structures grow inside the wood that hosts it, so their main body, which we consume, is not toxic.

The only thing that may concern consumers at this stage is if it is really a vegetarian option since it seems to feed on worms.

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.