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Phycomyces blakesleeanus
Phycomyces blakesleeanus is a filamentous fungus in the Order Mucorales of the phylum Zygomycota or subphylum Mucormycotina. The spore-bearing sporangiophores of Phycomyces are very sensitive to different environmental signals including light, gravity, wind, chemicals and adjacent objects.Phycomyces also exhibits an avoidance response, in which the growing sporangiophore avoids solid objects in its path, bending away from them without touching them, and then continuing to grow upward again. This is believed to result from an unidentified "avoidance gas" that is emitted by the growing zone of the sporangiophore. This gas would concentrate in the airspace between the Phycomyces and the object. This higher concentration would be detected by the side of the sporangiophore's growing zone, which would grow faster, causing the sporangiophore to bend away.
Phycomyces blakesleeanus became the primary organism of research of the Nobel laureate Max Delbrück starting in the 1950s, when Delbrück decided to switch from research on bacteriophage and bacteria to P. blakesleeanus.
5 Comments
Haha you're welcome:) Thank you for your compliment! Since PN I've become more interested in fungi other than the Amanitas (and other big stuff). I'm still far from an expert, and still learning every day!
Thank's for your research! hahaha, you're an expert!
Hi PatriciaPi! It does look similar, though Spinellus fusiger grows on other fungi (Mycena and other mycenoid fungi). I've done some research and found out that "Spinellus is similar morphologically to Phycomyces because it produces a large columellate sporangium and a simple sporangiophore but the zygospores are formed on opposed suspensors (Zycha et al., 1969)." So I've sought for pictures of Phycomyces, and it resembles your spotting much better than Spinellus! I think it might be Phycomyces blakesleeanus. It has the little yellow sporangia too, which Spinellus lacks.
http://mushroomhobby.com/Gallery/Zygomyc...
thank you TheMiesMeister!
I think is similar to Spinellus fusiger, what do you think?
That's just amazing! I think it might be a Spinellus species, but I'm not sure.