''Neonothopanus nambi'' is a poisonous and
bioluminescent
Bioluminescence is the emission of light during a chemiluminescence reaction by living organisms. Bioluminescence occurs in multifarious organisms ranging from marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms inc ...
mushroom in the family
Marasmiaceae
The Marasmiaceae are a family (biology), family of fungi in the order (biology), order Agaricales. Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are most frequently agarics (gilled mushrooms), but occasionally cyphelloid (in the genus ''Cellypha''). According to a ...
. The genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying this species' bioluminescence were published in 2019, the first to be elucidated for a fungus. In 2020, genes from this fungus were used to create bioluminescent tobacco plants.
Italian-Argentinian naturalist
Carlo Luigi Spegazzini
Carlo Luigi Spegazzini, in Spanish Carlos Luis Spegazzini (20 April 1858 – 1 July 1926), was an Italian-born Argentinian botanist and mycologist.
On the 1881/1882 expedition led by Giacomo Bove to explore Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, ...
described the species in 1883 as ''
Agaricus
''Agaricus'' is a genus of mushroom-forming fungi containing both edible and poisonous species, with over 400 members worldwide and possibly again as many disputed or newly discovered species. The genus includes the common ("button") mushroom ...
nambí'' in the subgenus ''Pleurotus'', from material collected in December 1879 near Guarapí, a locality in
Yaguarón
Yaguarón is a city in Paraguay, located at the base of Yaguarón Hill in the Yaguarón District of Paraguarí Department, from the capital Asunción. The town began as a Franciscan reservation for the Guaraní Indians.
It contains a famo ...
,
Paraguarí Department
Paraguarí (; Guaraní: Paraguari) is a '' departamento'' in Paraguay. At the 2002 census it had a population of 221,932.Paraguay
Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...
.
Pier Andrea Saccardo
Pier Andrea Saccardo (23 April 1845 in Treviso, Province of Treviso, Treviso – 12 February 1920 in Padua, Italy, Padua) was an Italian botany, botanist and mycology, mycologist. His multi-volume ''Sylloge Fungorum'' was one of the first attempt ...
placed it in the genus ''
Pleurotus
''Pleurotus'' is a genus of gilled mushrooms which includes one of the most widely eaten mushrooms, '' P. ostreatus''. Species of ''Pleurotus'' may be called oyster, abalone, or tree mushrooms, and are some of the most commonly cultivated ...
''.
Ronald H. Petersen and Irmgard Krisai placed the fungus in the new genus ''
Neonothopanus'' in 1999.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q10597630
Marasmiaceae
Bioluminescent fungi
Fungi described in 1883
Poisonous fungi
Fungus species