How Many Species of Fungi Are There?
There are about 75,000 scientifically identified species of fungi, with scientists believing there may be as many as a million fungal species yet unidentified. As differing species of fungi may look the same superficially, classifying them accurately is difficult, and usually requires the application of molecular tools such as DNA sequencing. As DNA sequencing is still relatively expensive, even for fungi with genomes far shorter than mammals, it will likely be many decades before the majority of fungi are classified with certainty. Common fungi include molds — which grow in strands called hyphae, mushrooms — fruiting bodies of fungal colonies, and yeasts — the name for any single-celled fungi. However, these are broad terms, and molds, yeasts, and mushrooms can be found across several taxonomic categories of fungi. Fungal classification at the phyla level is complicated, and is constantly being reshuffled. Fungi were first misclassified as plants, but subsequent investigations found t
