Scientists found a two-pound fungus they nicknamed D-rex

Scientists surveying forests in Yunnan, China, have identified a fungus large enough to earn a dinosaur nickname. Dianjunus rex, known as 'D-rex', produces upright reproductive structures that reach 50 cm tall and weigh up to 2.2 kg, the biggest known among the phylum Ascomycota. The team from the Kunming Institute of Botany found the whitish growths sprouting from the woody roots of Chinese cork oaks. Genetic work revealed the fungus was different enough to need a whole new family, Dianjunaceae. A molecular clock analysis traced the lineage to roughly 65 million years ago, about a million years after the extinction that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs. "After the mass extinction, forests experienced dramatic changes, including the sudden availability of large amounts of dead plant material," said Indunil C Senanayake, the study's corresponding author. As for why it grows so tall, researchers suspect height helps it fling spores further on the wind. It just needed the room.