''Cryomyces minteri'' is a

fungus A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

of uncertain placement in the class

Dothideomycetes Dothideomycetes is the largest and most diverse class of ascomycete fungi. It comprises 11 orders 90 families, 1300 genera and over 19,000 known species. Traditionally, most of its members were included in the loculoascomycetes, which is not pa ...

, division

Ascomycota Ascomycota is a phylum of the kingdom Fungi that, together with the Basidiomycota, forms the subkingdom Dikarya. Its members are commonly known as the sac fungi or ascomycetes. It is the largest phylum of Fungi, with over 64,000 species. The defi ...

. The rock-inhabiting fungus that was discovered in the

McMurdo Dry Valleys The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of largely snow-free valleys in Antarctica, located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound. The Dry Valleys experience extremely low humidity and surrounding mountains prevent the flow of ice from nearb ...

located in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

, on fragments of rock colonized by a local cryptoendolithic community. In 2008, ''Cryomyces minteri'' and '' Cryomyces antarcticus'' were simultaneously tested in low earth orbit conditions on the EXPOSE-E facility on the

EuTEF The European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) was a payload mounted on the exterior of the European ''Columbus'' laboratory, one of the modules of the International Space Station. The facility, mounted onto the exterior of ''Columbus'', provi ...

(European Technology Exposure Facility) platform outside the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

for 18 months. It was also tested in a space vacuum along with polychromatic UV radiation to simulate a Martian environment. The two fungi survived both of the simulations.

References

External links

Catalogue of Life: ''Dothideomycetes''
Dothideomycetes enigmatic taxa Fungi described in 2005 Fungi of Antarctica {{astrobiology-stub