It's a Mycological Easter egg hunt, a gathering of mushrooms that come from eggs! For the rest of my pages on fungi, please click TomVolkFungi.net Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page. You've found Saprolegnia parasitica, a water mold in the Oomycota (literally, the egg fungi)! Saprolegnia parasitica is usually an innocuous water mold that grows on dead vegetable matter in the water. It can form sexual spores (oospores) in oogonia. Notice that there can be several oospores in a single oogonium. However if a fish's immune system becomes compromised by environmental pollution, this oppportunistic fungal-like organs can parasitize the fish. It has not yet been fungus of the month. This organism is one of those outcasts that used to be considered a fungus, but no longer is. We now place it, along with other members of the Oomycota, in the Kingdom Protista, or the Stramenopila, which aslo contains the brown algae and diatoms. You can read more about the Oomycota at this page on late blight of potato. If you have anything to add, or if you have corrections or comments, please write to me at volk.thom@uwlax.edu This page and other pages are © Copyright 2003 by Thomas J. Volk, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Return to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page.
Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page.
You've found Saprolegnia parasitica, a water mold in the Oomycota (literally, the egg fungi)!
Saprolegnia parasitica is usually an innocuous water mold that grows on dead vegetable matter in the water. It can form sexual spores (oospores) in oogonia. Notice that there can be several oospores in a single oogonium. However if a fish's immune system becomes compromised by environmental pollution, this oppportunistic fungal-like organs can parasitize the fish. It has not yet been fungus of the month. This organism is one of those outcasts that used to be considered a fungus, but no longer is. We now place it, along with other members of the Oomycota, in the Kingdom Protista, or the Stramenopila, which aslo contains the brown algae and diatoms. You can read more about the Oomycota at this page on late blight of potato. If you have anything to add, or if you have corrections or comments, please write to me at volk.thom@uwlax.edu This page and other pages are © Copyright 2003 by Thomas J. Volk, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Return to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page.
This organism is one of those outcasts that used to be considered a fungus, but no longer is. We now place it, along with other members of the Oomycota, in the Kingdom Protista, or the Stramenopila, which aslo contains the brown algae and diatoms. You can read more about the Oomycota at this page on late blight of potato.
Return to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net
Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing