Fungi aren't plants, aren't animals, and aren't in any hurry to explain themselves — they're a whole separate kingdom that mostly lives out of sight. Cover the answers, commit to each one out loud, and keep score.

Are mushrooms more closely related to plants or to animals?

Animals — fungi and animals share a more recent common ancestor than either does with plants. The produce aisle has been lying to you.

What is the largest known single organism on Earth?

A honey fungus in Oregon's Blue Mountains — one individual spread across roughly 2,400 acres, about three Central Parks, and likely thousands of years old.

White button, cremini, portobello — how many species is that?

One. All are Agaricus bisporus at different ages and shades; a portobello is just a cremini that got to grow up.

Roughly how many mushroom species glow in the dark?

More than 80 known — the eerie light from rotting wood, called foxfire, was puzzling Aristotle over two thousand years ago.

Why do some mushrooms bother glowing?

Advertising — experiments with glow-in-the-dark Brazilian mushrooms showed the night light lures insects, which wander off carrying spores.

Which mushroom causes most of the world's fatal mushroom poisonings?

The death cap — which reportedly tastes fine. That's the problem: symptoms arrive after a long, deceptive delay.

Why did Italy ban truffle-hunting pigs in 1985?

The pigs kept eating the merchandise, and their digging wrecked the truffle beds. Dogs — who will settle for a biscuit — now do the job.

How many spores can a giant puffball release?

Trillions — of which only a handful will ever land somewhere useful. It plays the lottery by buying trillions of tickets.

What's actually happening in a "fairy ring"?

One fungus expanding outward underground from a central point and fruiting at its edge — some rings are centuries old and hundreds of feet across. Folklore blamed dancing fairies; the truth is a slow-motion ripple.

What does the so-called zombie-ant fungus make its host do?

Climb, clamp its jaws onto a leaf in a death grip, and wait — the fungus then sprouts a spore stalk from the ant's head to rain spores on the trails below.

Which kingdom do you have to thank for bread, beer, and wine?

Fungi — yeast is a single-celled fungus, making baking and brewing humanity's oldest fungus-farming operations.

Fungal cell walls are built from the same material as what?

Insect exoskeletons — chitin. Plants build with cellulose; mushrooms build with beetle armor.

Around 400 million years ago, before trees existed, the tallest things on land were spires over 20 feet high. What were they?

Most researchers say giant fungi — Prototaxites. The land's first skyscrapers were, in all likelihood, enormous mushrooms.

What vitamin do mushrooms make when you leave them in sunlight?

Vitamin D — like your skin, they synthesize it under UV light, and some growers give their crop a deliberate tan.

What do oyster mushrooms eat besides dead wood?

Meat — they snare and digest tiny roundworms, making the mild mushroom on your pizza a part-time carnivore.

Score it honestly. Anything over ten, and the next time someone calls a mushroom a vegetable, you're licensed to explain that it's closer to being a very quiet animal.