Associate Professor Kenji Suetsugu of the Graduate School of Science, Kobe University and Koichi Gomi, a photographer in the field, revealed that Japanese squirrels routinely eat famous poisonous mushrooms such as fly agaric and amanita in Nagano prefecture. ..Since the same individual Japanese squirrel continued to eat the fruiting body of the genus Amanita (mushroom body) for several days, it is highly possible that the Japanese squirrel is safely ingesting "poisonous mushrooms".
Poisonous mushroom venom is thought to have evolved to prevent it from being eaten by animals, and this discovery is an interesting phenomenon.On the other hand, even if the fruiting body of the mushroom is eaten, if the spores are excreted in a viable state, the distribution area can be expanded as the animal moves, which is an advantage.
From this, while squirrels have adapted to use Amanita as food, it is possible that the genus Amanita is also helping each other to have squirrels carry spores.In the future, in order to verify whether squirrels are active as spore carriers, we would like to find out if viable spores can be found in squirrel droppings.
Paper information:[Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment] Squirrel consuming “poisonous” mushrooms
