Short Stuff: Death Cap Mushroom

Summary

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Stuff You Should Know: Short Stuff – Death Cap Mushroom

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh and Chuck
Date: September 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this “Short Stuff” episode, Josh and Chuck dig into the dangerously fascinating world of the Death Cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides). With their signature curiosity and playful banter, the hosts explore just how lethal and tricky this mushroom can be, how it spread to North America, its biological quirks, and why foragers should proceed with extreme caution.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Death Cap’s Lethal Reputation

• The Death Cap mushroom is notorious for its toxicity. Eating it is not always a “death sentence,” but Josh shares a startling statistic:
  • “The fatality rate from eating this mushroom is 10 to 15% of people who eat it die.” (Chuck, 01:25)
  • Hosts highlight how even a “low” percentage is alarmingly high when compared with edible mushrooms, which are almost never fatal.

A Brief Bay Area Outbreak

• A 2016 outbreak in San Francisco’s Bay Area led to 14 poisonings, with one child suffering permanent neurological damage.
  • The tragedy prompts Chuck to ask: “How did these things get here? Because they did not originate here.” (Chuck, 02:37)

How Death Cap Spread to North America

• Symbiotic Sneak Attack: Josh explains that Death Caps are ectomycorrhizal fungi forming mutualistic relationships with trees—originally beech and oak in Europe.
  • “It lives in the roots…and it trades nitrogen…in exchange for sugars and water and carbon…Everybody's happy until you come along and eat one of the death caps.” (Josh, 03:05)
• The fungus arrived in North America through imported European trees with spores in their roots (Josh, 03:50).
• Genetic studies confirm that North American Death Caps are identical to those from Europe (Chuck, 04:06).

Geographic Spread

• First sighted in California in 1938, Death Caps now range from the West Coast up to Vancouver and have also been found on the East Coast, in Russia, Scandinavia, and North Africa (Chuck, 04:16–04:56).
• The hosts joke about Cheech Marin accidentally eating one, reinforcing the need for accurate knowledge (Josh & Chuck, 05:02–05:20).

Invasiveness: Why It Matters Where They Grow

• California: “The death cap mushroom is an invasive species in California, where it grows in very beautiful woodlands and forests.”
• East Coast: In urban parks, they’re easier to contain—city infrastructure acts as a barrier (Josh, 08:08–08:48).
• Discussion references Anne Pringle, Rubenstein Professor of Botany and Bacteriology—one of the leading experts interviewed for the topic (Josh, 09:07–09:18).

Deadliest Toxins: Why Death Caps Are So Dangerous

• Two major toxins:
  • Phallotoxin: Causes vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and kidney damage.
  • Amatoxin: “That will stop cell function. It targets the transcription of RNA by RNA polymerase 2…It prevents the cell from making the proteins…that it needs to be a cell.” (Chuck, 09:29)
    • Amatoxin quickly damages the liver and can make symptoms appear to resolve temporarily, leading to delayed treatment and higher mortality (Josh, 10:08–10:28).

The Hidden Threat of Delayed Symptoms

• Victims can feel better after initial sickness, but the amatoxin continues silent organ destruction, leading to liver failure—a liver transplant is often the only way to save a patient (Josh, 10:27–10:54).

Mushroom Foraging: A Word of Caution

• Foragers Beware: “If you're a forager, you really gotta know what you're doing…If you aren't, just don't try it. Don't risk it. It's not worth it.” (Chuck, 12:12)
• Josh adds a strong disclaimer, telling listeners not to try foraging without expert guidance (12:18).

Identifying the Death Cap

• Anne Pringle describes the identifying features:
  • “Olivaceous coloring with green tinge”
  • Mature caps have brown striations
  • “Fairy rings” around the stem (Chuck, 13:09)

A Dangerous Surprising Fact

• “The reason why people eat these is because they taste good.” (Josh, 13:20)
• This leads people to underestimate their danger, as there’s no bitter warning.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Humor and Banter:
  • “Not for you, I think is the main message here.” (Josh, 01:12)
  • Joking about “Death Cap Mushroom” being a metal band (Josh & Chuck, 00:44)
  • Recurring Cheech Marin and “Nash Bridges” jokes as comic relief (various, 05:02–05:20 and 13:46)
• Memorable Warning:
  • “If you aren’t, just don’t try it. Don’t risk it. It’s not worth it.” (Chuck, 12:12)
  • “Don’t even if you think you are familiar with your local mushrooms, don’t try it. We are not telling you under any circumstances to go try this.” (Josh, 12:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:25: Death Cap fatality rate
• 02:37: 2016 San Francisco outbreak
• 03:05: Explanation of Death Cap’s symbiosis with trees
• 03:50–04:06: How Death Cap arrived in North America
• 04:16–04:56: History and current geographic spread
• 08:08–08:48: Invasive species discussions
• 09:29: Deadliest toxins explained
• 10:27: Amatoxin/organ failure and transplants
• 12:12: Foraging warning
• 13:09: Identification tips

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Final Takeaways

• Do not eat wild mushrooms unless you are with an expert. Death Cap mushrooms are deceptively tasty and look like some edible species.
• Foragers must exercise extreme caution; identification requires expertise.
• The Death Cap’s deadly nature, widespread invasion, and the subtlety of symptoms make it a subject worth serious respect, not risk.

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In the hosts’ own style:
If you’re curious about mushrooms, maybe just order the white buttons at the grocery store—and never, ever do your foraging based on vibes or band names.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. Josh here. Chuck. Here. Jerry. No here. Dave. No here. That's okay, because like I said, it's a short stuff.

[A]

Good evening, everyone. We are Death Cap Mushroom.

[B]

Yeah, that's a great one.

[A]

It's a metal band, right?

[B]

For sure. Even just Death Cap would work too. Death Cap for Cutie. Even would be cool.

[A]

Oh, man, I like those guys.

[B]

Yeah, they're great. Did you like Postal Service?

[A]

I love the Postal Service more than Death Cab.

[B]

It's just the one dude from Death Cab. Right. Isn't his solo project not solo?

[A]

Ben Gibbard? He linked up with someone else. It's like him and another guy. I can't remember the other guy, but, man, I love that Postal Service record.

[B]

Okay, good, good. I'm glad you did. I'm glad they made it then. Me too. So we're not talking about Death Cap for Cutie. We're talking about Death Cap mushrooms. Not for you, I think is the main message here.

[A]

Not for cuties or anyone.

[B]

No. And the reason they call it Death Cat mushroom is because it can kill you if you eat it. It's not necessarily an automatic death sentence, but apparently the fatality rate from eating this mushroom is 10 to 15% of people who eat it die.

[A]

In this House to perks article, they were like, you know, that's pretty low. I'm like, not to me.

[B]

No, that's. I mean, that's really high. Look at white button mushrooms, buddy. It's almost like zero. And I think the people who do die from eating white button mushrooms ate too many at once and choked to death.

[A]

This is why I don't eat mushrooms at all.

[B]

Oh, you don't, huh?

[A]

No, it's a texture thing. They're too slimy for me. I've tried.

[B]

Oh, no. You gotta wash the slime off. And I'm not expecting you to actually try this, but I know exactly what you're talking about. You wash the slime off, you dry it, you lick the top of it, put some salt on it, and eat it raw. And it's got a nice, sturdy crunch almost to it. And I love those.

[A]

You know what's funny? I don't think I've ever mentioned not liking eating something where you didn't say, no, no, no, you're just doing it wrong.

[B]

I like eating everything.

[A]

All right, so there was an outbreak in 2016 in the Bay Area of San Francisco, where 14 people consumed. Well, the death cap mushroom got really, really sick. One very sad story of a child suffered permanent neurological damage. And the question is, like, how did these things get here? Because they did not originate here. That's one of the questions.

[B]

Are you setting me up to answer it?

[A]

Well, sure. Do you have an answer? Because I do.

[B]

I have a general answer, apparently so. It's a ectomycorrhizal fungus that engages in symbiotic relationships, mutualism, with specific kinds of trees. And in Europe, they're typically beech trees or oak trees. And it lives in the roots, the main part of the fungus. And it trades nitrogen that the mushroom draws from the soil to the oak or the beech tree in exchange for sugars and water and carbon. And they do this by basically connecting their roots to the tree roots. And everybody's happy until you come along and eat one of the death caps.

[A]

Yeah. I think we did a whole episode on mutualism, didn't we?

[B]

Surely.

[A]

Or symbiosis or something.

[B]

Yeah. But I didn't answer your question. The answer seems to be that somebody imported a tree from Europe at some point that had a death cap mushroom mycorrhizae in its roots, and surprise. Death cap mushrooms are in North America.

[A]

Yeah. And they know that it wasn't a native species, because, you know, that could be possible, that there's just like a California, North America version.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But it would be genetically different somehow. But the ones that we have over here are exactly the same. It's the same mushroom. I think the first known sightings were in 1938 at the Del Monte Hotel in California. There's a lot of these in California. And then, what, five, six, seven, eight years later at the Cal Berkeley campus. And now they're kind of all over the place. They're on the East Coast. They live in the pines and the East Coast. But those oaks on the west coast, all the way up to Vancouver, I believe. But they've also found them outside of Europe in western Russia, southern Scandinavian coasts, and North Africa.

[B]

Yeah. They go. I think also on the west coast of the United States, they grow all the way down to LA County.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is how Cheech Marin accidentally ate one.

[A]

Oh, did he really? Or is that a joke?

[B]

That is joke. I'm sorry.

[A]

So mad at you.

[B]

You could have said like. I know it was. You have to say it really weird.

[A]

Like, that seems so likely that Cheech Marin might have accidentally eaten one of these.

[B]

I think he kind of went straight with that whole Nash Bridges gig that he got. And Tommy Chong is like, no, man. I still eat whatever I find on the ground.

[A]

Speaking of Nash Bridges, maybe I shouldn't say this. I'll tell you off air.

[B]

Oh, I can't wait. Is it about Don Johnson? Yeah, it is. Okay.

[A]

All right, so should we take a break or should we talk a little bit more about it?

[B]

Let's take a break. All right.

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[A]

All right, we're back. And this is something I don't fully understand, but the death cap mushroom is an invasive species in California, where it grows in very beautiful woodlands and forests. It is not considered such on the east coast, where it grows in more urban settings, like urban parks, but it still could be invasive. Like, I don't understand what the diff is.

[B]

It's very easily contained in an urban area. You've got your park, but then, you know, you say, like, hey, mushroom, try to. Try to spread from this park. Yeah, deal with this sidewalk, then the street, then the sidewalk, then a building, then another sidewalk, then a street, then a sidewalk, then a sidewalk, then a sidewalk, then a sidewalk. And the mushroom goes, okay, fine, I'll just stay here.

[A]

All right. So I guess I just. Yeah, I guess I didn't fully understand what invasive meant. I thought invasive just meant if it was there and not great for the area. I didn't mean it had to be, like, super widespread.

[B]

I didn't either. But that's what I took from this description of it. So that's my take, I should say. That's not like the.

[A]

I thought that was a quote.

[B]

It was of Anne Pringle, the Letters in Science, Rubenstein professor of Botany and Bacteriology at the University of Madison, Wisconsin.

[A]

Wow, look at you.

[B]

Yeah. We should say shout out to HowStuffWorks for helping us with this article by writing it. And they interviewed Professor Pringle about this, and she was very helpful.

[A]

Yeah. There's a couple of toxins when it comes to the death cap. One of them is a phallotoxin. And you're talking what you would expect. Dehydration, diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, but eventually electrolyte imbalances and kidney damage. But the really bad booger in there is amatoxin, and that will stop cell function. It targets the transcription of RNA by RNA polymerase 2, which we've talked about before, and that basically causes cell death. It prevents the cell from making the proteins and cell components that it needs to be a cell.

[B]

Right. So that's always bad. And apparently it goes very quickly to your liver and just starts destroying your liver. And apparently people go to the emergency room. Sick with. Sick on, basically after eating a death cat mushroom will find that the doctors want to give them a liver transplant plant if one is available.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

That's how bad it can get. And one of the reasons why it can get so bad is because after the initial like nausea and vomiting and. And horrible, like, I shouldn't have eaten that mushroom that I found in that field sensation, it goes away. And you think that you're fine, but actually in reality, that amatoxin is just destroying your body. And then by the time you start to feel those effects, you're in really big trouble.

[A]

Isn't liver one of the longer weights or am I making that up?

[B]

Longer weights?

[A]

Yeah. Wait, W A I T s for transplant?

[B]

I don't know. No, I don't think so. Because you can cut off like a chunk of your liver and donate it because I don't know if it grows back or else just a little bit can perform a lot of function. One of those.

[A]

I'm thinking kidneys.

[B]

No, I don't think so. I think it's liver.

[A]

So we got all the organs are readily available for transplanting.

[B]

For sure. I mean, it's so easy to get when you just walk in and they try to give you two livers most of the time.

[A]

I could have maybe. This is a while ago. I could have sworn I read reports of like people dying on the liver transplant list.

[B]

Oh, I believe it, but I don't think that. I don't think liver is the least available.

[A]

Okay, I gotcha.

[B]

But I could be wrong. But yeah, I think everybody dies on the organ transplant list waiting. Or I should say not everybody on the list dies. But I'm saying for any organ, there are people dying on the waitlist.

[A]

I got you. Yeah. Boy, that's a nice correction. So the takeaway from this is don't eat the death cap mushroom at all. You need to. And if you're a forager, you really gotta know what you're doing. You shouldn't be like, hey, I saw this on Top Chef. Like, I can go out in the woods and just pick stuff and eat it. You gotta be really familiar with the fungi where you are. And if you aren't, just don't try it. Don't risk it. It's not worth it.

[B]

No, I think we should issue a general coa for us here. Don't. Even if you think you are familiar with your local mushrooms, don't try it. We are not telling you under any circumstances to go try this. Okay.

[A]

I think foraging is wonderful, but. So I'm not going to say that personally, but you're welcome to just know what. You just know what you're doing.

[B]

Tort reform. Now.

[A]

There are all kinds of resources, if you are interested in stuff like that, that can very clearly tell you, like, what's safe and what isn't. But you should still take a buddy who's done it before. I think you can identify, according to Dr. Pringle, who can't eat just one. It has olivaceous coloring with green tinge, and a mature death cap has brown striations on the cap.

[B]

And don't forget fairy rings around the.

[A]

Stem, which can Forget the fairy rings.

[B]

Right. It goes without saying that that's just a bunch of fairies forming a circle by holding hands.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I saw one of the things Chuck, about this. The reason why people eat these is because they taste good.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

So people are caught by surprise when all of a sudden they start puking because the fact that it tasted good, I think, indicated to them that this is fine to eat.

[A]

Well, you know who's never going to get sick by eating a bad mushroom?

[B]

I do.

[A]

And has two thumbs and is podcasting with you right now.

[B]

I do.

[A]

This guy right here.

[B]

Oh, that's not what I was going to say.

[A]

Oh, Cheech Marin.

[B]

You got anything else?

[A]

I got nothing else.

[B]

Short stuff is out.

[A]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit.

[B]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[A]

You listen to your favorite show.