this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Fear their power (lemmy.nz)
submitted 10 months ago by Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 100 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To save you a search:

It has a tetrapolar mating system with each cell containing two mating-type loci (called A and B) that govern different aspects of the mating process, leading to 4 possible phenotypes after cell fusion. Each locus codes for a mating type sublocus (α or β) and each type is multi-allelic: the A locus has 9 alleles for the α type and an estimated 32 for its β type, and the B locus has 9 alleles each for both its α and β types. When combined this gives an estimated 9 × 32 × 9 × 9 = 23328 potential mating type specificities. This does not mean all different mating types are compatible with one another, because compatibility between haploid individuals exists only when for both the A and the B mating-type locus at least the α or β are different. Strains are thus compatible with ( 1 − 1/ (9 × 32) ) × ( 1 − 1/ (9 × 9) ) ≈ 0.984 = 98.4 % of the population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophyllum_commune#Mating

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 55 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Imagine how much easier dating would be if you’re default compatible with over 98% of the population. Making me jealous.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’m just not into the A locus though

[–] idkwhatimdoing@sh.itjust.works 16 points 10 months ago

All 288 variations? Problematic.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And it's wasted on plants, who just spread their cum around the whole damn planet and make me sneeze.

[–] SuperIce@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

These aren't plants? Are there even plants with mating types?

[–] DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Most plants are both genders, they produce male and female parts.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

Yep, I started writing something about that but then I figured it detracted from "fungi are not plants".

[–] powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 54 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not quite - mating types aren't sex (though the post confuses them). Their gametes are the same size (isogamy), so it's called mating types. Humans have gametes of different sizes, so we have sexes.

[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The opening line of that wikipedia article says they're "equivalent to sexes in multicellular lifeforms"

[–] powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Right, "equivalent to" in the sense that legs are "equivalent to" fins in that they provide locomotion.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

I mean, they are just for different environments. Fins aren't very useful for terrestrial animals, and legs aren't as useful for aquatic animals. Both provide similar functions suited to their environment, and are therefore roughly equivalent.

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 51 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Look, I'm glad someone's having fun, but I'm not memorizing that set of pronouns!"

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

When you have that many sexes, I think everyone would just use they/them. Don't want to assume incorrectly.

[–] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That was my thought as well. That many sexes, if they can be called sexes, basically means everyone would have a single indeterminate sex. Imagine filling a form and selecting your sex among a 20K list of names.

[–] habs@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are more than 20K cities/towns to choose from and most forms have auto-complete for that. So I think we could make it work and if it was an essential part of your identity, I imagine people would come to recognize most of them just by name over time

[–] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 1 points 10 months ago

If my species had 20K sexes, sex wouldn’t be an essential part of my identity. It would be like my fingerprints being part of my personality.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You wouldn't be choosing between 20k it's in four sets of 9, 32, 9, and 9 so each would have four descriptors that would make up their mating configuration

[–] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Excuse me, but that’s like saying “my sex is 20x10x10x10”. The combinations are still in the thousands even if you use different notation. It’s like representing male/female as 0/1 and saying it only uses one bit, but everyone still hast to remember the name and expectations associated with that bit.

A sentient species with so many sex combinations would not bother to name each one, or attach specific sociocultural traits to all of them. Humans, for example, know like 10-20k words, passing sex ed would be like reaching master level in a foreign language. It would be a tag with less meaning, like age, height, or blood type are.

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 10 months ago

What's always been wild to me is how much the patterns you see when eating psilocybin resemble these and other mycelial growth. It's almost like you become part shroom.

[–] Bonus@mander.xyz 22 points 10 months ago

[–] Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 10 months ago

schizophyllum commune is a crazy name