Scientists identify a new African magic mushroom species and find it likely shared an ancestor with Psilocybe cubensis around 1.5 million years ago

Psilocybe ochraceocentrata, a newly described African magic mushroom species, helps explain where Psilocybe cubensis may have come from. Genetic work using museum and other preserved collections suggests the two species likely shared a common ancestor about 1.5 million years ago. The study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B indicates the new species has been misidentified as P. cubensis or related mushrooms for years, and that the evolutionary origins of the more famous species may lie in Africa. Both species are associated with dung, and the estimated split time lines up with major ecological transitions such as herbivore migrations that changed dung habitats across regions. The research still does not pin down how P. cubensis arose in the Americas, though the authors propose possibilities such as long-distance dispersal and call for population genomic and demographic studies to test hypotheses about its dispersal history.