Like plants, fungi can ‘see’ colour across the spectrum using receptors sensitive to blue light and red light – unlike plants, fungi also have opsins, the light-sensitive pigments present in the rods and cones of animal eyes. Hyphae can also sense the texture of surfaces; one study reports that young hyphae of the bean rust fungus can detect grooves half a micrometre deep in artificial surfaces, three times shallower than the gap between the laser tracks on a CD. When hyphae felt together to make mushrooms, they acquire an acute sensitivity to gravity. And as we’ve seen, fungi maintain
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