By Susan Milius
Never mind that they’re not viruses. Catching the trend of cocktails called quarantinis and registered racehorse names like Wearamask, two fungal species now have pandemic-inspired monikers. In a nod to the new normal of science, both names grew out of the frustrations of trying to keep research alive in an upside-down world (SN: 5/23/01).
In the first case, tiny, fungal leopard spots on saw palmetto leaves turned out to be new to science. Despite looks, they belong to the same family (Xylariaceae) as the black stubs that rise from the ground called dead man’s fingers.
The leopard spots are not just a new species but represent a whole new genus, mycologist Pedro Crous and colleagues announced in the July 2020 Persoonia. As the pandemic raced across Europe, Crous — working mostly from home instead of in his lab at Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands — named the genus “Diabolocovidia,“ or “devilish COVID.”
Finding the new species wasn’t that hard, says forest pathologist Jason Smith. He’d had some spotty leaves lying around his lab at the University of Florida in Gainesville when another coauthor visited in search of novelties. “This speaks to something a little broader,” Smith says. Even everyday places hold new fungal species because, unlike birds and mammals, most fungi are unnamed.