新托福阅读材料：What are fungi, plants or animals?

真菌无处不在

真菌(Fungus)是一种真核生物。最常见的真菌是各类蕈类，另外真菌也包括霉菌和酵母。现在已经发现了七万多种真菌，估计只是所有存在的一小半。大多真菌原先被分入动物或植物，现在成为自己的界，通常又分为三类，即酵母菌、霉菌和蕈菌(大型真菌)，它们归属于不同的亚门。

Mushrooms are merely one of many types of fungi. Not all fungi grow in soil. Mushrooms and other fungi do resemble plants in many ways, so much so that scientists long classified fungi plants, but they know better now.

Eating Habits

Where it truly counts, fungi differ from plants significantly. One major difference lies in how they eat. Plants are characterized by their ability to make their own food, using chlorophyll, sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.

Fungi cannot make their own food. They have to consume other living or once living organisms. Fungi aren’t animals either, but for what it’s worth, some scientists consider them more akin to animals than plants. It’s even thought that fungi and animals may share a similar single-celled ancestor.

A major defining difference between the two kingdoms, however, is that while fungi do indeed have to consume other material, they don’t have stomachs like animals. Fungi have special cells that allow them to absorb their food.