MycoRant

Word of the discovery and description of seven new species of glow-in-the-dark fungi appeared on Twitter on the same day as it was published (Oct 5, 2009). (If you are not following mycology news on twitter you are missing out. You can start by following MycoRant. If you think twitter is a fad, remember–that’s what some people said about the Internet!)

An excerpt from GLOWING MUSHROOM PICTURES: Psychedelic New Species Seen by Christine Dell’Amore.

Glowing nonstop in the Brazilian rain forest, the newfound mushroom Mycena luxaeterna (pictured both in daylight, top, and in the dark) is indeed a source of eternal light, as its Latin name–inspired by verses from Mozart’s “Requiem”–implies. The tiny mushroom is one of 7 new species of glow-in-the-dark fungi found around the world, bringing the total known to 71, according to a study that appeared October 5 in the journal Mycologia.

You can see then at the National Geographic Photo Gallery for Glowing Mushroom Pictures.

Or you can see some that were discovered in 2006.

There are quite a few recent news articles about this discovery. I’ve looked at them all and here are the two best ones linked below (all the others are pretty much clones of each other and very short). And of course here is a link to the full text article Bioluminescent Mycena species from São Paulo, Brazil. Thank you Mycologia!

Seven New Luminescent Mushroom Species Discovered

Flashy Fungi: Researchers Still in the Dark Over Glowing Jungle Mushrooms

Tags: bioluminescence, Brazil, Mycena