Fungi are among the most diverse groups of organisms on earth. Even though how many fungi exist remains an unanswered question, mycologists generally assume that the approximately 150,000 species described to date represent only a tiny fraction of them.

The isolation of fungi from natural sources often yields specimens that differ from known species in morphology or molecular sequence data, indicating that they could represent undescribed taxa. We regularly isolate such potential candidates for new taxa, so our lab's strains collection has so far led to the description of several fungal species previously unknown to science.