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schizophyllum commune is a crazy name
Not quite - mating types aren’t sex (though the post confuses them). Their gametes are the same size (isogamy), so it’s called mating types. Humans have gametes of different sizes, so we have sexes.
The opening line of that wikipedia article says they’re “equivalent to sexes in multicellular lifeforms”
Right, “equivalent to” in the sense that legs are “equivalent to” fins in that they provide locomotion.
To save you a search:
It has a tetrapolar mating system with each cell containing two mating-type loci (called A and B) that govern different aspects of the mating process, leading to 4 possible phenotypes after cell fusion. Each locus codes for a mating type sublocus (α or β) and each type is multi-allelic: the A locus has 9 alleles for the α type and an estimated 32 for its β type, and the B locus has 9 alleles each for both its α and β types. When combined this gives an estimated 9 × 32 × 9 × 9 = 23328 potential mating type specificities. This does not mean all different mating types are compatible with one another, because compatibility between haploid individuals exists only when for both the A and the B mating-type locus at least the α or β are different. Strains are thus compatible with ( 1 − 1/ (9 × 32) ) × ( 1 − 1/ (9 × 9) ) ≈ 0.984 = 98.4 % of the population.
Imagine how much easier dating would be if you’re default compatible with over 98% of the population. Making me jealous.
I’m just not into the A locus though
All 288 variations? Problematic.
“Look, I’m glad someone’s having fun, but I’m not memorizing that set of pronouns!”
When you have that many sexes, I think everyone would just use they/them. Don’t want to assume incorrectly.
What’s always been wild to me is how much the patterns you see when eating psilocybin resemble these and other mycelial growth. It’s almost like you become part shroom.
