In South Africa, the oldest multicellular creature on the planet was found, it's hard to believe, but these are mushrooms. The research results showed that the age of the find is 2.5 billion years. According to biologists, the first bacteria were just born on the planet in this era. How could multicellular fungi be the same age as unicellular microorganisms? Why do scientists consider these "creatures" the most dangerous on the planet?
Japanese scientist Toshuki Nakagaki put forward a sensational hypothesis: "mushrooms are intelligent and constantly compete with humans for their environment." The organism, which until recently was considered one of the most primitive, has turned out to be practically invulnerable and poses a threat to our existence.
Toshuki Nakagaki.
According to biochemical analysis, fungi are closer to the animal cell. Is it not already, if they are closer to us in structure and biochemical composition than to plants, then they can have a mind (at least in an embryonic form)?
Mold and microorganisms that cause decomposition are also fungi. On a piece of land under the foot of a person there is about half a million kilometers of mycelium - a plexus of thinnest filaments similar to neural (they form the largest network on the planet), through the same network, the colony of fungi exchanges not only nutrients.
Mycelium.
You will be surprised, but hats with legs are "spies" of the collective intelligence who instantly receive information and transmit it for many kilometers.
Few people know, but many animals are powerless against the onslaught of mushrooms and easily obey their commands. The fungus, as an experienced predator, chooses its prey and enslaves it by populating it with spores.
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For example, there are mushrooms that make an ant not crawl into an anthill in the evening, but climb a high blade of grass, gain a foothold there and wait until morning for the sheep herd to graze. If the sheep does not eat such an ant, then he returns to live an ordinary ant life, and the next new one again goes to the hunt and waits for his sheep.
There are mushrooms that make grasshoppers jump into the water and make oscillatory movements there in order to attract fish that will eat them.
The aggressive behavior of fungi allows them to spread throughout the planet. They are not just around, but many of them successfully live within us.
Mushroom cuttlefish.
If you look at all those creatures that are controlled by mushrooms and worms, it turns out that they have (or at least their direct ancestors) tens or even hundreds of millions of years. Fungi have had an enormous amount of time to adapt to the control of these organisms. In the most favorable scenario, man is about 300 thousand years old. Therefore, there have not yet appeared such parasites that can effectively control our behavior.
Mushrooms have already learned how to adapt to the most incredible living conditions. In the atomic reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, they consume radioactive substances and multiply rapidly.
Devil's cigar.
Another amazing fungus is found in the forests of South America. It recycles polyurethane, which was previously thought to be non-degradable.
Such opportunities boggle the imagination, and the sooner mankind looks at mushrooms, the more chances we have to become not slaves of these organisms, but their allies.