The phylum Chytridiomycota contains five orders, 900 species and the single class Chytridiomycetes which contains a number of parasitic species. At least two species in this class are known to infect a number of amphibian species. These are the only members of the kingdom Fungi that produce motile cells at …

With the invention of the microscope by van Leeuwenhoek in the seventeenth century, the systematic study of fungi began. And the man who deserves the honor of being called the founder of the science of mycology is Pier Antonio Micheli, the Italian botanist who, in 1729, published Nova Plantarum Genera, …

Biologists use the term ‘fungus’ to include eukaryotic, spore-bearing, achlorophyllous organisms that generally reproduce sexually and asexually. They are usually made up of filamentous, branched somatic structures which are typically surrounded by cell walls containing chitin or cellulose, or both of these substances. The fungi originated as a distinctive group …