‘Dianjunus rex’ in the field. Image: Song et. al ‘Frontiers in Fungal Biology,’ 2026

It’s a fungi-filled world and we are just living in it. There are roughly 150,000 to 157,000 known species of fungi, and now there is a new giant species to add to that tally.

A team of scientists exploring the forests of Yunnan in southern China discovered the new fungus, which shows just how large these organisms can grow. The new species Dianjunus rex grows vertical fruiting bodies (the top part of the fungi that we usually see as a mushroom) that can grow as high as a foot (50 centimeters) and weigh close to five pounds (2.2 kilograms).

This new fungus is the largest known species within the phylum Ascomycota , the largest known phylum of fungi with over 64,000 known species.…