11 odd facts about magic mushrooms

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Magic mushrooms contain a hallucinogenic with many strange properties, but did you know these true facts?

Animals feel the effects

sad animal

(Image credit: Vladimir Wrangel/Shutterstock)

Psilocybin 'shrooms grow in the wild, so it's perhaps inevitable that nonhuman animals have sampled these trippy fungi. In 2010, the British tabloids were abuzz with reports that three pygmy goats at an animal sanctuary run by 1960s TV actress Alexandra Bastedo had gotten into some wild magic mushrooms. The goats reportedly acted lethargic, vomited and staggered around, taking two days to fully recover.

Siberian reindeer also have a taste for magic mushrooms, according to a 2009 BBC nature documentary. It's unclear whether the reindeer feel the effects, but Siberian mystics would sometimes drink the urine from deer that had ingested mushrooms in order to get a hallucinogenic experience for religious rituals.

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Stephanie Pappas
Stephanie Pappas
Live Science Contributor

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.