Top 10 New Species of 2010
Bioluminescent Mushroom Common name: Eternal ...
Bioluminescent Mushroom (Mycena luxaeterna) Common name: Eternal light mushroom. Lighting up the top 10 is a luminescent fungus collected in São Paulo, Brazil, found on sticks in an Atlantic forest habitat. The teeny mushrooms, less than 8 millimeters in diameter with caps smaller than 2 centimeters across, have gel-coated stems that glow constantly, emitting a bright, yellowish-green light. San Francisco State University biology professor Dennis Desjardin and his colleagues who made the discovery, named the new species Mycena luxaeterna (eternal light) after a movement in Mozart's 'Requiem.' Desjardin, who has discovered more than 200 new fungi species, noted that of the estimated 1.5 million species of fungi on Earth, only 71 species are known to be bioluminescent. Credit: Cassius V. Stevani … Read more »
(Instituto de Química – Univ. de São Paulo, Brazil)
