''Aquascypha'' is a fungal

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

in the family Meruliaceae. It is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus, containing the single species ''Aquascypha hydrophora'', found in Central and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. This species forms cup-like structures with dimensions of (average ) and heights of (average ). Study of this fungus in the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

showed that on average, these cups hold 35 millitres of water, in addition to organic matter such as leaves, flowers and fruits that fall from trees; this provides an ideal environment for various insect species (especially filter-feeding species like

mosquitoes Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by '' mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, ...

) to breed.

References

Taxa described in 1965 Monotypic Polyporales genera Meruliaceae Taxa named by Derek Reid {{Polyporales-stub