Death of Mice and Men

In a small village in the Yunnan province of China in the 1970's over 300 healthy people died.  Then in 2005 scientists attributted another series of Sudden Unexplained Deaths (SUD) to potentially deadly mushrooms in their diet. Over the next few years five more outbreaks of these mass deaths were linked to the specific mushroom Trogia venenata, the weird thing is that at the time this mushroom was not known to be toxic.

Trogia venenata

Now the same group of researchers that observed the correlation of these deaths to T. venenata has tested their effects on mice in controlled laboratory settings.Want to guess what happened?

Death of Rats

That is correct, they all died.

Hypoglycemia and Death in Mice Following Experimental Exposure to an Extract of Trogia venenata Mushrooms

Within 30 minutes of exposure all of the mice exposed to extract of T venenata started showing signs of toxicity. Within 3 hours of feeding 70% of the test mice were dead, the rest followed in the next few hours. Those mice in the control group, (fed extract from L. vinaceoavellanea instead of  T. venenata)  lived throughout the seven day observational period.
The team then went on to measure the toxicity levels and found that mice started dying at around 370mg, this is the equivalent of a human eating 150g (5.2 oz).
So remember, eating the wrong mushroom is not just deadly to rodents...




Death of Rats Artwork: Kit Cox http://www.fantasyartists.org/KitCox