Study suggests dinosaurs were high on psychedelic fungus

Researchers at Oregon State University have a surprising new theory about dinosaurs: They may have eaten psychedelic fungi.

The study, published in the journal Paleodiversity, suggests that dinosaurs got high from ergot, a green parasite that has mind-altering — and sometimes poisonous — effects on animals.

Researchers began looking into the theory when a German paleontologist found the earliest fossil evidence of grass — and the preserved spikelet contains what appears to be ergot. The amber fossil, found in Myanmar, dates to about 100 million years ago, and it "establishes for sure that grasses were in the Old World 100 million years ago," study author George Poinar, Jr. told Live Science.

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The fossil supports a growing amount of evidence that grasses existed at the same time as the dinosaurs did — previously, scientists believed that grasses evolved after the dinosaurs were extinct. Poinar believes grasses date as far back as the early Cretaceous period and may have even existed during the Jurassic period.

Scientists don't know when the ergot fungus first attacked grass, but Poinar says the fossil "indicates that psychedelic compounds were present back in the Cretaceous." He believes that dinosaurs definitely ate the grass, though he told Vice that "whether dinosaurs would have gotten dizzy, nauseous, or were otherwise affected is difficult to say."