Mushrooms are the most numerous, in species and numbers, during the summer months and may be found almost everywhere in the fields and woods. Yet true nature students and mushroom seekers know what a bewildering array of these lowly plants greet them wherever they stroll.
To most of us, deterred by the heat from venturing into the woods during the Summer, they may as well not exist.
But when Autumn is in the air with its delightful fragrance, the cool, sunlit days of October beckon us outdoors to wander down a country lane or to follow the winding woodland trail.
Then we observe them peering at us from around a fallen log, playing hide-and-seek from beneath the fallen leaves, or simply staring at us from an open glade.
Mushrooms Have Value
Authorities in dietetics claim that mushrooms have little nutritive value. Perhaps this is so, but I think there is some doubt about it, and I believe further investigation is necessary before any definite statement can be made.
However, they are high in vitamin content. Everyone agrees that they are excellent as condiments or food accessories, adding greatly to the palatability of various foods.
Could this be the reason why various animals like them, or is it because they do have a certain amount of food value?
Mushroom For Animals
I have often wondered why more animals do not include them in their diet because the list of animals that do feed on them is not unimpressive.
Among the lower forms of animal life, the common slug is a mushroom eater and rarely passes one up.
It is said to have the ability to locate certain fungi and will gormandize on a mushroom until there is nothing left of the plant.
Many insects, of which the beetles include the largest number, bore in fungi, and certain flies, the fungi flies, are no despisers of a mushroom diet.
Fly Larvae
Probably the larvae of these flies are among the happiest creatures on earth, for it has been found that the females, in depositing their eggs, seek out only the tastiest mushrooms as food beds for their progeny.
Stink Horns
The stink-horns, with their carrion-like smell, are frequently visited by certain blow-flies that find the sweetish taste of the green, slimy, semi-fluid covering to their liking. In return, they spread the spores to distant places.
Tropical Ants
Some insects, such as certain large tropical ants, even go so far as to cultivate little mycelia bodies as food for themselves.
These ants cut out small circular portions of leaves which are kneaded into a pulpy, spongy mass that serves as “compost.”
After a time, a network of fungus threads appears, at the ends of which are knobbed structures that contain fluid.
This fluid is rich in food value, for it forms the most important, if not the sole food, of these ants. They can obtain a pure culture by assiduously weeding out all foreign organisms. Then by continuously pruning the fungus, they keep it in a vegetative condition to prevent fructification.
Higher Animal Eating Mushrooms
The higher animals, not to be outdone by the lower forms, have also taken to eating mushrooms.
Squirrels, chipmunks, other rodents, turtles, deer, elk, armadillos, skunks, shrews, moles, and grouse are all known mushroom eaters.
The wood turtle, for instance, relishes certain kinds. The favorite foods of the box turtle are these lowly plants, and this reptile seemingly prefers them to such fare as strawberries, blackberries, and other fruits, to say nothing of animal items.
Surprisingly, the box turtle seems to have complete immunity to such deadly forms as the fly amanita and destroying angel, although the animal apparently can transmit the poisonous qualities of these plants if eaten, as a case on record would seem to prove.
The red squirrel, too, seems to be immune to these deadly mushrooms and will eat them readily, although it appears to prefer the more substantial Boleti. This little rodent is a real lover of mushrooms, and they are as high on its list of food items as nuts.
44659 by Richard Headstrom