Neonothopanus gardneri image found here

A species of bioluminescent fungi, Neonothopanus gardneri, which hasn’t been seen in almost 170 years, has been rediscovered in Brazil. According to the USA Today, it is “one of the most strongly bioluminescent mushrooms known.” More via USA Today:

Glowing fungi aren’t all that unusual in nature, there are 71 known species. But “this one is incredibly bright for a luminescent mushroom,” says Dennis Desjardin, a professor of evolutionary biology at San Francisco State University who researches fungi. “It glows more brightly than almost all other luminescent mushrooms.”

While most glowing fungi are either tiny or faint, these mushrooms emit a greenish light strong enough “that if you were in a dark room and you put one on a newspaper, you’d be able to read the words,” says Desjardin.

The last time scientists encountered this specific glow-in-the-dark mushroom was in 1840, when English botanist George Gardner saw some boys playing with a glowing object in the streets of Vila de Natividad, a village in the Goiás state in central Brazil.

Gardner sent examples of it to researchers at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in England. They confirmed it was an unknown species and named it for him, calling it Agaricus gardneri.

After that there were no more reports of it.

Brazilian chemist, Cassius Stevani first heard of the existence of these mushrooms in 2001 or 2002, he said via email from Brazil.

But it wasn’t until February of 2005 that he got more data, from scientists Patricia Izar from São Paulo University in Brazil and Dorothy Fragaszy of the University of Georgia in Athens.

They were studying a band of monkeys in Brazil’s Piauí State and their use of rocks at tools to break nuts. One day they returned to the camp where “they found some mushrooms growing on the base of palms,” Stevani says.

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The group has been looking at the chemical pathways that allow these mushrooms to produce light, a mechanism that is still somewhat mysterious. The newly re-discovered mushroom also allowed them to make chemical comparisons between the four major lineages of mushrooms that are bioluminescent.

Scientists have been trying to understand whether the ability to glow evolved four times or just once, back when these distantly-related mushrooms had a common ancestor. Chemical analysis showed that they share much of the chemistry for producing light, “which suggests the pathway must have evolved early on ,” says Desjardin.

Only 71 species of fungi are bioluminescent, out of the 100,000 known species.

Why certain fungi glow in the dark is another unknown. One theory is that insects attracted to the glow help carry the mushrooms’ spores farther afield. Another is that the light attracts predatory insects that in turn eat insects that snack on the fungus.

One animal that doesn’t eat Neonothopanus gardneri is humans. It’s in a family of mushrooms known to be responsible for poisonings worldwide, says Desjardin.

Continue reading this article at the USA Today.

More images of other species of bioluminescent fungi from around the world:

Panellus stipticus is a cosmopolitan species of bioluminescent mushroom, which is found in North America and around other parts of the world. Image via

Panellus stipticus. Image via

A species of Mycena glowing at night in eastern Australia. Image via Smoken Mirror on Flickr

Image via Christina’s Play Place on Flickr

Image via Christina’s Play Place on Flickr

Mycena sp. Image via Smoken Mirror on Flickr