A mushroom weighing more than 20 kilograms, picked in a forest in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas in 2007.

Unlike the African Termitomyces titanicus that strictly grows within termite mounds until it fruits, Macrocybe titans grows from the ground in warm woodland and grassland ecosystems. Instead of being fed a continuous flow of woody debris from insect mutualists, Macrocybe titans is said to live a solitary, saprophytic lifestyle, breaking down dead organic material into digestible sugars. Yet this is somewhat convoluted since it has also been scientifically documented growing from leafcutter ant mounds! For some reason, no entomologist or mycologist has looked into this interaction so again, I’m being speculative, but the similarities between both colossal species are actually quite striking.