Mexico: Kingdom Fungi — Second Most Biodiverse Country in Edible Mushrooms
Mexico: the world's second most biodiverse country in edible mushrooms
Surpassed only by China. With more than 400 species of wild edible mushrooms traditionally consumed —and many more still to be described— Mexico lives, every rainy season, one of the most extraordinary biocultural celebrations on the planet.
Sources for the second-place ranking: Institute of Biology, UNAM — more than 400 species of wild mushrooms traditionally consumed, placing Mexico second in the world by number of species eaten. · Amaranta Ramírez Terrazo, Revista de la Universidad de México — places China first, with more than 600 species. · La Jornada (16 Feb 2024), interview with Dr. Magdalena Martínez Reyes, Colegio de Postgraduados.
01 — One country, one vast underground kingdom
When it rains in Mexico, something extraordinary happens underground. The country holds a reservoir of fungal biodiversity that places it as the second country in the world by richness of wild edible mushrooms — behind only China.
- 371 edible taxa documented by Garibay-Orijel & Ruan-Soto (2014), Anales de Antropología. Read the paper
- More than 400 species traditionally consumed, according to the Institute of Biology at UNAM. UNAM
- More than 450 species eaten in Mexico, against roughly 600 in China, according to Dr. Jesús Pérez-Moreno, Colegio de Postgraduados. La Jornada
- More than 200 of those wild edible species are also medicinal, according to Dr. Magdalena Martínez Reyes, Colegio de Postgraduados. La Jornada
- Dr. Gastón Guzmán (1932–2016), father of modern Mexican mycology, published more than 420 works and 14 books, and described —together with his collaborators— three new genera and more than 220 species new to science. Academic obituary
Comparison and market figure: Dr. Magdalena Martínez Reyes, Colegio de Postgraduados, interviewed by La Jornada.
This knowledge is bound to Mexican mycophilia. We explore that relationship on our Mycotourism and Ethnomycology page.
Mexico is not only fauna and flora: it is also funga. This second kingdom — the one that digests, connects and recycles — has here one of its richest expressions on the planet, and we have barely begun to name it all. We develop this stance in our Funga Manifesto.
02 — iNaturalist Mexico: fungal citizen science in real time
iNaturalist is the world's most important citizen-science platform for documenting biodiversity. Every observation of a mushroom in Mexico feeds a global database used by researchers and universities.
In the Fungi of Mexico project anyone can record their observations. Those collective observations build the most up-to-date map of the Mexican mycobiota.
Recent observations in Mexico — iNaturalist
Fungi of Mexico project · Live data from the global citizen-science platform
Loading recent mushroom observations from Mexico…
How to contribute
- Download the iNaturalist app (iOS and Android)
- Take at least three photos: cap (from above), gills or pores (from below), and the base of the stipe
- The platform suggests an identification and the expert community confirms it
- Every observation with GPS and date is a real data point for science
The cards show the most recent research-grade observations in Mexico. If they do not load, visit iNaturalist.org directly.
Recent discoveries — the Mexican mycobiota keeps revealing itself
Mexico's fungal richness is not a closed inventory: every season, science describes species new to human knowledge. In 2025, a team from the Mycology Laboratory of the University of Guadalajara documented six new species of entomopathogenic fungi in the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis complex in the forests of Jalisco — the so-called “zombie-ant fungi”, which alter the behaviour of their host ants before fruiting from their bodies. It is the first record of this complex documented for Mexico.
These findings belong to the same Cordyceps / Ophiocordyceps genus we study closely alongside our collaborator Robert Kelly in Tepoztlán. They are a reminder that much of the Mexican fungal kingdom remains, still, territory yet to be named.
Source: Ballesteros-Aguirre CE, Sanjuan T, Ramírez-Cruz V, Villalobos-Arámbula AR, Vásquez-Bolaños M, Guzmán-Dávalos L (2025). “Zombie-ant fungi from western Mexico: six new species in the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis complex and a new host association with Cephalotes ants”. Persoonia 55: 203–237. DOI 10.3114/persoonia.2025.55.06 · PMID 41536591. Etymology of the epithet and the quotation from Ballesteros-Aguirre: University of Guadalajara.
03 — The rainy season
In Mexico's temperate forests, fruiting concentrates in the rainy season, from June to October, peaking in August. During those weeks — above all through the work of the women who gather them — nearly a hundred different species can reach traditional markets.
Seasonal window and market species figure: Dr. Magdalena Martínez Reyes, Colegio de Postgraduados, in La Jornada (16 Feb 2024).
Mushroom fairs and festivals 2026
San Miguel y sus Sabores
Gastronomic festival at the opening of the rainy season. Our own city.
Guanajuato TravelGEMA — Gastronomy, Art and Culture
An international week at the height of the fruiting season.
Guanajuato Travel9th Mushroom Fair
Sierra Madre Occidental. The founding edition of northern Mexico.
Official siteMushroom Festival
Sierra Sur of Oaxaca, above 2,300 m. A Zapotec community with generational knowledge.
festivaldelhongo.comCuajimalpa Mushroom Fair
The capital's best-known wild mushroom celebration.
Expo Hongo Uruapan
The Purépecha forests of Uruapan, a region with deep mycological tradition.
Dates are the responsibility of their organisers; confirm directly before travelling.
04 — Mycological hotspots of Mexico
05 — Our network of knowledge
The people behind the knowledge
- The nanacateras, mushroom gatherers from six Mexican states. Meet them
- Robert Kelly, field naturalist specialising in entomopathogenic fungi (Cordyceps), Tepoztlán, Morelos. His profile
- Alonso Cortés-Pérez, mycologist specialising in Mycena; co-author of the description of six new bioluminescent species of the genus and of a new record for Mexico. His profile
- Maestra Horalia Díaz Barriga (in memoriam), founder of the Mycological Collection of the Herbarium at the Faculty of Biology, UMSNH, and mentor to Simbiosis. Her profile
- César Kevin Pérez Pacheco, designer, artist, biologist and mycologist from Oaxaca.
06 — Simbiosis in Guanajuato
Of everything this page recounts, Simbiosis is the point where all of it becomes tangible in Guanajuato. At Mercado Sano (San Miguel de Allende) we keep seasonal wild mushrooms so you can meet them in person.
07 — Explore Mexico's funga
To name is the first act of conservation: nothing can be protected that cannot be called by name. These three doors are Mexican, they are in Spanish and they are free. The last one is not for consulting: it is for answering. The global databases that fix the names —MycoBank, Index Fungorum, GBIF— live in The Fungi Kingdom.
Scientia Fungorum
The mycology journal of the Mexican Association for the Study of Fungi. Peer-reviewed, open access and in Spanish: this is where Mexican mycology publishes its own work, without asking English for permission.
Read the journalEncicloVida — CONABIO
Mexico's encyclopaedia of biodiversity: profile, distribution and common names for every species recorded in the country. Built by CONABIO. In Spanish.
Search for a speciesNaturalista MX
Every mushroom you photograph with a date and a coordinate enters the same database the country's researchers consult. Our project is called Fungívoros de Simbiosis and it is open to anyone.
Join the projectTo keep exploring
- Field Guide to Wild Species
- Mycotourism and Ethnomycology
- Nanacateras
- Collaborating Mycologists
- iNaturalist Mexico
- Tours and experiences
Biodiversity figures come from verified academic institutions (UNAM, Colegio de Postgraduados) and peer-reviewed literature. Mexico's fungal richness remains, in large part, territory still to be documented.