Mushrooms grow in soil. They look kind of plant-like. They appear in supermarket vegetable aisles. So lots of people just lump them in with plants. They’re not. Fungi belong to their own separate kingdom of life - alongside animals, plants, bacteria and a few weirder groups.
Plants make food from sunlight. Fungi can’t do that. They get all their energy by absorbing nutrients from other living or dead organisms. In that way they’re more like us - both fungi and animals are heterotrophs, meaning we eat other things to survive.
The deeper you look, the closer the family link gets. Fungi cell walls are made of chitin - the exact same tough substance that makes up beetle shells and crab claws. And genetically, fungi split off from the same branch as animals around a billion years ago, long after plants had headed off in a different direction.
