It’s the ultimate devil’s bargain: a mushroom that can get you unbelievably high, right before it shuts down your liver and kills you. Would you take that risk?
Until a study published this week in Current Biology, you never had to worry because nature kept those two traits separate. Some fungi packed psilocybin to melt your brain in a fun way, while others brewed deadly poisons to melt your organs. Then researchers found a mushroom that contains both psychedelic compounds and the ability to kill in the swamps of Florida.
Student researcher Andrew Kunik and mycologist Matthew E. Smith were hunting for toxic fungi at a UF biological station when they spotted Galerina indica, a tiny brown mushroom that bruised blue when touched. Blue bruising usually means “magic mushroom,” so lab tests confirming psilocybin made total sense. No surprise there. And then they found out that it also contained amatoxins, the lethal compound found in death cap mushrooms.
Scientists Found a Mushroom That Contains Both Psychedelic Compounds and Deadly Poison
This dangerous combination led to its nickname — “dark magic mushroom.”
Genetic analysis with collaborators at the University of Utah and Ohio State found that Galerina indica, the mushroom’s scientific name, isn’t actually the first mushroom to promise both a psychedelic trip and death. Millions of years ago, it essentially copied the genetics of an unrelated fungus through gene transfer.
The researchers don’t understand why, evolutionarily speaking, a mushroom would need to be both a party drug and a bio weapon at the same time, but one thing is for sure: absolutely do not eat it.
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