According to Dawit Abate, a Fulbright Visiting Fellow and professor of mycology at University of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, termites have been farming mushrooms to feed themselves for longer than man has been doing so.
“We have none of these kinds of termites cultivating mushrooms in the New World, they are only Old World,” said SUNY Cortland Distinguished Professor Emeritus Timothy Baroni, a biologist who specializes in mycology (fungi). Baroni is part of a group of researchers investigating a possible New World connection: mysterious insect nests in Colombia where fungi appear to be cultivated…Certain species of African termites chew up wood into their huge nests, seed it with fungi, ventilate their gardens, and feed their families off of the outgrowth. The maligned insect probably has farmed mushrooms for tens of thousands of years, much longer than humans have cultivated their food, according to Baroni.
Click here to read the full article “Lecture Explores Termite Mushroom Farms” at SUNY Cortland.
