Mid-Week Mini: Mushrooms Are More Similar to People than Plants

In this week’s Mid-Week Mini Episode, we learn that mushrooms are more similar to people than they are plants.

You probably learned in school that there are two main categories of living things: plants and animals. And mushrooms? They kind of just got tossed in with plants because… well, they sit there and grow out of the ground.

But that’s not actually true.

Mushrooms aren’t plants at all. In fact, they’re more closely related to you than they are to a tree.

Yeah. You and that portobello burger? Cousins.

Scientists classify mushrooms in their own kingdom called fungi. And when researchers started studying DNA more closely, they realized fungi share a more recent common ancestor with animals than with plants. That means, evolutionarily speaking, mushrooms and humans branched off from the same line after plants had already gone their separate way.

And it gets weirder.

Plants make their own food through photosynthesis – sunlight, carbon dioxide, the whole “we are the solar panels of the Earth” thing. Fungi can’t do that. Just like animals, they have to consume organic material for energy. They “eat” by breaking things down – dead leaves, wood, even entire organisms – and absorbing the nutrients.

So instead of being producers like plants, fungi are more like nature’s recyclers.

Also, fungi breathe oxygen and release carbon dioxide… just like we do. That’s not a plant move. That’s an animal move.

And structurally, their cells have similarities too. For example, fungi store energy in the form of glycogen – the same way humans do – while plants store energy as starch.

So next time you’re slicing mushrooms for pizza, just remember: biologically speaking, you have more in common with those mushrooms than you do with the tomato sauce.

Which is either fascinating… or a little unsettling.

The internet says it’s true.