Meet 'D-rex': the king-sized fungus that has towered over China's forest floors for 65 million years

In the mixed forests of Yunnan in southwest China, researchers from the Kunming Institute of Botany found pale stalks rising from the roots of cork oaks — a fungus nobody had ever described. Named Dianjunus rex, it grows fruiting bodies up to 20 inches (about 50 centimetres) tall, the largest of its kind, and it is so distinct it forms a whole new genus and family, Dianjunaceae. Its DNA suggests the family appeared about 65 million years ago, just after the extinction that ended the dinosaurs opened up forests full of fallen wood.