E16: New Species— of elfin saddle fungus from Mexico!

Dr. Roberto Garibay-Orijel is a researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. He talks to me about his paper published in Phytotaxa on April 23 in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of elfin saddle cup fungus from high altitudes in central Mexico!

We talk about edible mushrooms, the difficulties of identifying new species of mushrooms, where monarch butterflies hide during the winter, lightning storms at the top of mountains, how dried mushrooms can look like skulls and bones, and ballistic spores!

The title of the paper is “Helvella jocatoi sp. nov. (Pezizales, Ascomycota), a new species from H. lacunosa complex with cultural importance in central Mexico Abies religiosa forests.” The paper is currently available open access in Phytotaxa: https://www.mapress.com/j/pt/article/view/phytotaxa.498.1.1

To learn more about Dr. Garibay-Orijel, visit his website: http://ib.unam.mx/directorio/58 or his Research Gate page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roberto-Garibay-Orijel