On 9/15/2011 10:14 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> And that's what I'm asking. Is mammal predation on fungi significant
> enough that it's worth developing defences against it? Or is the extreme
> toxicity of some fungi merely an unrelated accident?
>
Since we don't eat all sorts of them, but just the larger ones, I would 
say, "probably". At the very least, wild pigs eat them, and probably 
others too. Besides which, that they have the characteristic, and its so 
heavily involved in their chemistry at this point, doesn't mean that the 
species that they *did* have a risk from is still present. After the 
trait exists, it merely needs to have "some" limited benefit, or not 
cost more than getting rid of it, to continue.

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