Fungus pockets are any of various

convergently evolved Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

inoculum In biology, inoculum (: inocula) refers to the source material used for inoculation. ''Inoculum'' may refer to: * In medicine, material that is the source of the inoculation in a vaccine * In microbiology, propagules: cells, tissue, or viruses that ...

-retention and -cultivation organs in a wide range of

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

taxa. They are generally divided into

mycangia The term mycangium (pl., mycangia) is used in biology for special structures on the body of an animal that are adapted for the transport of symbiotic fungi (usually in spore form). This is seen in many xylophagous insects (e.g. horntails and bark ...

(or "mycetangia") and infrabuccal pockets. Fungus pockets are found in

ambrosia beetles Ambrosia beetles are beetles of the weevil subfamilies Scolytinae and Platypodinae (Coleoptera, Curculionidae), which live in nutritional symbiosis with ambrosia fungi. The beetles excavate tunnels in dead or stressed trees into which they introduc ...

bark beetles A bark beetle is the common name for the subfamily of beetles Scolytinae. Previously, this was considered a distinct Family (biology), family (Scolytidae), but is now understood to be a specialized clade of the "true weevil" family (Curculioni ...

termite Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

s and

attine ant Fungus-growing ants (tribe Attini) comprise all the known fungus-growing ant species participating in ant–fungus mutualism. They are known for cutting grasses and leaves, carrying them to their colonies' nests, and using them to grow fungus on ...

References

Insect morphology Mycology Symbiosis {{ecology-stub