Current Affairs

Issue

A new species has just been discovered on Twitter. It’s a type of parasitic fungus, which researchers have described in the journal MycoKeys. Its name: Troglomyces twitteri.

 

Details

• A biologist and associate professor with the University of Copenhagen’s Natural History Museum of Denmark, was scrolling though Twitter when she stumbled upon a photo of a North American millipede.

• She spotted a few tiny dots, which was something looking like fungi on the surface of the millipede. Until then, these fungi had never been found on American millipedes.

• On further research, they found several specimens of the same fungus on a few of the American millipedes in the collection. These were fungi that had never before been documented before. 

• Troglomyces twitteri belongs to an order called Laboulbeniales — tiny fungal parasites that attack insects and millipedes look like tiny larvae. These fungi live on the outside of host organisms; in this case, on the reproductive organs of millipedes.

• Laboulbeniales were first discovered in the middle of the 19th century. Their taxonomic position was identified in detailed studies performed by Roland Thaxter at Harvard University, beginning in 1890.

• Of these, approximately 30 different species attack millipedes. Most of these species were recently identified but scientists believe many more remain to be discovered.