What The Duck?!
What The Duck?!
ABC Australia
Mushrooms: What are they, really?
25 minutes Posted Oct 9, 2025 at 6:30 pm.
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Show notes
Mushrooms were once lumped in with plants, and they stayed there well after science knew better.
But if a fungus is not a plant… is it a closer relative of yours than you might've thought?
With millions of species on Earth, and many that live inside you, it seems important to know about the kingdom of fungi.
Featuring:
Tom May, senior principal research scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria; and co-author of Planet Fungi 
Grace Boxshall, PhD student at the University of Melbourne and visiting junior research fellow at the University of New South Wales
Georgina Hold, Professor of Gut Health at the School of Clinical Medicine, University of New South Wales
Dr Sapphire McMullan-Fisher, fungal and plant ecologist at the University of New England
Production:
Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer
Rebecca McLaren, Producer
Hamish Camilleri, Sound Engineer
This episode of What the Duck?! was produced on the land of the Wadawarrung and Taungurung people.
Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.