Life, death and zombie mushrooms: in search of the Amazon’s rarest fungi

TWilight falls into the Ecuadorian jungle when the two scientists spot their first zombie. The smell of damp earth and vegetation rises as Alan Rockefeller takes slow, careful steps, scanning the forest floor with an ultraviolet light.

Suddenly a fragment of undergrowth glows: strands of light cordyceps, became fluorescent by the torch. Dubbed the “zombie mushroom”, cordyceps is known to colonize its insect hosts forcing them to seek a suitable location to release spores. This is the place where the host will die.

A Cordyceps nidus mushroom held the palm of a hand

A hand holding a branch with two small orange mushrooms on it, in the rainforest of Pastaza, Ecuador

A hand holds up a stick growing Schizophyllum commune fungus that glows in UV light. — Clockwise from top left: the team finds a *Cordyceps nidus*, a species found in 2017 feeding on fruit on a trap door spider; Rockefeller enlightened a *Cookeina speciosa*; next he holds up a stick on which *Schizophyllum commune* grow, a common mushroom that glows in UV light; Rockefeller and Quark show four monkey combs

Mandie and Alan keep four monkey combs in the rainforest of Pastaza, Ecuador. — Clockwise from top left: the team finds a *Cordyceps nidus*, a species found in 2017 feeding on fruit on a trap door spider; Rockefeller enlightened a *Cookeina speciosa*; next he holds up a stick on which *Schizophyllum commune* grow, a common mushroom that glows in UV light; Rockefeller and Quark show four monkey combs

Mandie Quark kneels in the wet, spongy earth and carefully digs her fingers around the entomopathogenic fungus to reveal the insect that lies beneath the surface: a thumb-sized beetle. The couple carefully lift and photograph their find before starting their two-mile walk home.

Here in the mountains of Ecuador, the two mycologists embarked on a research expedition into the unprotected rainforests of the upper Amazon. Their mission is to carefully document some of the world’s rarest fungi, which are rapidly declining due to changes in climate, illegal logging and mining.

Mandie Quark wears water shoes and a backpack walking through the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.

The Amazon rainforest full of the world’s most diverse flora and fauna. Countless species of fungi dot the landscape, many still unnamed and awaiting discovery. Rockefeller and Quark carefully collect data by photographing and cataloging each specimen for submission to the national herbarium in Quito and eventual DNA sequencing.

Rockefeller and Quark’s ultimate goal is to share their discoveries about Amazon fungi with the world, helping ecological conservation efforts in Ecuador and beyond. They work with the indigenous people Sacha Wasi communitywho invited the scientists to work on their land and exchange information about different mushroom species and their culinary or ecological potential.

Alan Rockefeller examines the rainforest soil wall for mushrooms in Pastaza, Ecuador.

A woman holds up a torch to photograph a mushroom on a tree truck with her phone

Close-up of a camera lens pointing at a bunch of small mushrooms

A woman kneels on the forest floor to take a close-up of an Ophiocordyceps melolonthae mushroom

A small pink Clavaria cf. schaefferi fungi on the forest floor are illuminated by two lights in front of a camera lens

Two indigenous women crouch among forest vegetation with their dog to observe boletus mushrooms of the genus marasmius, with Alan Rockefeller holding a camera pointed at the fungi — Above: Rockefeller searches for a rainforest soil wall for mushrooms. Middle section, clockwise from top left: Quark holds up a powerful hand light; catch a *marasmus* pinwheel mushroom in her lens; Rockefeller sets up two lights to capture *Clavaria* *schäfferi*; Quark photos *Ophiocordyceps melolonthae*. Above here: Rockefeller is joined in his work by two women from the Sacha Wasi community

At the heart of the process lies the art of myco-photography. Each click of the shutter is an attempt to capture a fleeting moment in the cycle of these fragile organisms, which spend most of their lives underground. “My goal is to take the best possible photo to get people excited about biodiversity and learn more about mushrooms,” says Rockefeller.

The pair’s methods include focus stacking macro photography, a technique that captures every intricate detail of a mushroom, as well as recording the microscopy of the spores and generating DNA “barcode data”. Through this methodology, they aim to ensure that each recorded mushroom contributes to the current understanding of fungal biodiversity.

A man in a cap looks up at the camera at mushrooms growing on a tree trunk, while in the background a woman photographs some on a fallen log

“Knowing what you have is very important for conservation,” says Rockefeller. “You can’t just say you have a rare nameless mushroom – it doesn’t work.

“If you can name it, then you can preserve it. And if people are going to do chemical analysis to try to make a new discovery based on these fungi, they need a name that they can use to communicate about which fungus they’re using. So taxonomy is really important for that reason.”

Most people will never have the opportunity to visit the rainforest and observe these diverse and elusive fungi, so Rockefeller and Quark shared their findings about social media and app-based platforms, such as iNaturalist, Mushroom Observer, GenBank and MycoMap, to enable others to investigate the intricate details – in some cases, before the species disappears.

As they navigate challenging Amazonian terrain, they aim to open a window to the immense potential of fungi, and the importance of preserving irreplaceable ecosystems.

Rockefeller and Quark sit on a decorated porch to label their mushroom collection specimens

A labeled fungal sample is added to the dehydrator

Top view of a man and a woman taking samples from three plastic collection boxes filled with fungi on a wooden deck — Back at base, the duo begin the process of sorting and labeling the samples from their day’s work before placing them in the dehydrator. Once completed, the valuable trek will be taken to the national herbarium in Quito

Rockefeller looks at spores under the microscope sitting at a table decorated with pink flowers in a vase — Back at base, the duo begin the process of sorting and labeling the samples from their day’s work before placing them in the dehydrator. Once completed, the valuable trek will be taken to the national herbarium in Quito

“It’s hard to stay in the present moment these days—we always have a million things trying to grab our attention,” says Quark. “But the work we do is to draw attention to the here and now and inspire others to do the same.”

She adds: “Mushrooms exist on the precipice of life and death. They remind us that existence is fleeting, and so is our human experience. To be there at the perfect moment to find a beautiful mushroom, you have to be present in all your senses to appreciate that flash in time when the mushroom is at its most pristine.”