A pale-yellow fungi as much as 50 cm (20 inches) high, growing from the roots of passing away trees in China’s Yunnan province, comes from a family tree that might have come from the after-effects of the dinosaur termination.
Stromata of Dianjunus rex in the field. Image credit: Song et aldoi: 10.3389/ ffunb.2026.1940464.
“This impressive types represents a brand-new fungal household and supplies an unusual window into the development of severe fungal body kinds,”stated Dr. Indunil Senanayakea scientist at the Kunming Institute of Botany.
“The discovery highlights just how much fungi biodiversity stays to be found in East Asian forests.”
Called Dianjunus rexthe types produces fleshy, finger-like or palm-shaped fruiting structures, called stromata, approximately 50 cm high. The biggest specimen weighed 2.2 kg(almost 5 pounds).
Its fresh fruiting bodies are soft and dry rapidly when selected.
“A fruiting body which towers above surrounding greenery and particles might have much better dispersal of spores by wind in thick forests,” Dr. Senanayake stated.
“However, such a big structure needs significant energy financial investment, recommending that this technique most likely developed just where the environmental advantages exceeded the expenses.”
The specimens of Dianjunus rex were gathered in 2024 and 2025 at 3 websites: a tropical rain forest in Xishuangbanna and temperate forests near Kunming and Lufeng. The majority of them were discovered connected to the roots of oak trees.
“They grew on woody roots of Chinese cork oak, emerging from the rhizosphere,” Dr. Senanayake stated.
“Ascomyceteswith more than 64,000 types the biggest group of fungis, do not grow real mushrooms however rather release spores from small, sac-like structures inside or on the surface area of such fruiting bodies.”
Dianjunus rex comes from the Xylarialesa big order of fungis that primarily break down wood and generally form little, dark, crusty developments.
Hereditary analyses of 4 gene areas, plus whole-genome sequencing of 3 specimens, put the types by itself branch, a sibling to a household called Graphostromataceae
Its pale, grainy surface area, unique spore functions and tiny nonsexual phase set it apart, validating a brand-new household, Dianjunaceae.
By comparing genomes with those of adjusted fungal family trees, the scientists approximated that the household divided off about 65 million years earlier.
This would put its origin around the end-Cretaceous mass termination that eliminated the non-avian dinosaurs.
“This timing raises an appealing possibility,” Dr. Senanayake stated.
“After the mass termination, forests experienced remarkable modifications, consisting of the abrupt accessibility of big quantities of dead plant product.”
“For wood-associated decomposing fungis, such ecological disturbance might have developed brand-new eco-friendly chances.”
The discovery is reported in a paper in the journal Frontiers in Fungal Biology
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Jing Song et al2026. Discovering a fungal giant: Dianjunaceae fam. nov., an unique Paleocene family tree of Xylariales harboring Dianjunus rex gen. et sp. nov. Front. Fungal Biol 7; doi: 10.3389/ ffunb.2026.1940464
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