Coprinites
Encyclopedia
Coprinites is an extinct monotypic
genus
of gilled
fungus
in the Agaricales
family Agaricaceae
. At present it contains the single species
Coprinites dominicana.
The genus is solely known from the early Miocene
, Burdigalian
stage, Dominican amber
deposits on the island of Hispaniola
. Coprinites is one of only four known agarics fungus species known in the fossil record and the first of three to be described from Dominican amber.
"AF-9-11", a single fruiting body, mushroom
, specimen currently residing in the Poinar collections maintained by the University of California, Berkeley
. The specimen was collected from the La Toca amber mine, northeast of Santiago de los Caballeros
, in the Cordillera Septentrional
area of the Dominican Republic
. It was first studied studied by Dr. George Poinar
of the UC, Berkeley and Dr. Rolf Singer
from the Field Museum of Natural History
in Chicago, Illinois. Poinar and Singer published their 1990 type description in the journal Science
. The generic epithet Coprinites is in reference to the genus similarity to the modern genus Coprinus
. The specific epithet "dominicana" was coined by the authors in reference to the Dominican Republic where the fossil was recovered.
When initially published Coprinites dominicana was the first species of agaric fungus to be described. Two more species Protomycena electra
and Aureofungus yaniguaensis
have since been described from fossils found in the amber mines of the Dominican Republic, while the fourth species Archaeomarasmius leggeti
is from older Cretaceous
age New Jersey Amber. With the 2007 publication of a fifth extinct agaric species, Palaeoagaracites antiquus
the age for the order was pushed back to the Albian
(approximately 100 Ma).
preserved in a piece of clear yellow amber approximately 9–6 mm (0.354330708661417–0.236220472440945 in) and weight 0.5 gram (0.017636981052556 oz). The pileus
is 3.5 millimetre (0.137795275590551 in) in diameter and has a convex shape sporting a small central depression. The brownish-pink flesh is thin with a scaly-pectinate surface. The margin is striated and slightly flared. Coprinites sports fifteen nondeccurent lamellae, or gills, which reach the outer pileus and thirteen lamellulae, short gills which do not reach the edge, of varying lengths. The pileus is centered on the stipe, which is 4 millimetre (0.15748031496063 in) in diameter and incomplete, with part of the stipe base preserved in the amber next to the pileus. The light brown basidiospores, present on the hymenium
associated with the fruiting body, are smooth and ellipsoidal to oblong. Each basidiospore is approximately 6 to7 μm long and appear to possess a germ pore.
Coprinites was originally placed in the family Coprinaceae based on the visible structures, or macromorphology of the fruiting body and the microscopic features preserved in the amber specimen. The combination of characters present did not match any modern genus of the mushroom order Agaricales
leading Poinar and Singer to erect the genus Coprinites. The lack of autodeliquescence along with the mushrooms morphology lead David Hibbett
, Michael Donoghue and David Grimaldi
to question the placement of Coprinites. They noted the characters of the genus are similar to those of Leucocoprinus
genus mushrooms. They suggested that Coprinites could be treated as either a member of Coprinaceae or Agaricaceae
, to which Leucocoprinus belongs. With a number of molecular studies a large portion of the genera formerly placed in Coprinaceae, including Coprinus, have been moved into Agaricaceae. Thus supporting the suggestion of Hibbet, Donoghue, and Grimaldi.
Monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...
genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of gilled
Agaricales
The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms , or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families, 413 genera, and over 13000 described species, along with five extinct genera known only from the fossil record...
fungus
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large 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, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
in the Agaricales
Agaricales
The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms , or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families, 413 genera, and over 13000 described species, along with five extinct genera known only from the fossil record...
family Agaricaceae
Agaricaceae
The Agaricaceae are a family of basidiomycete fungi and includes the genus Agaricus, as well as basidiomycetes previously classified in the families Tulostomataceae, Lepiotaceae, and Lycoperdaceae. The genus contains 85 genera and 1340 species.-Genera:...
. At present it contains the single species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
Coprinites dominicana.
The genus is solely known from the early Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
, Burdigalian
Burdigalian
The Burdigalian is, in the geologic timescale, an age or stage in the early Miocene. It spans the time between 20.43 ± 0.05 Ma and 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma...
stage, Dominican amber
Dominican amber
Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic. Resin from the extinct species Hymenaea protera is the source of Dominican amber and probably of most amber found in the tropics....
deposits on the island of Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
. Coprinites is one of only four known agarics fungus species known in the fossil record and the first of three to be described from Dominican amber.
History and classification
The genus is known only from the single holotypeHolotype
A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...
"AF-9-11", a single fruiting body, mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
, specimen currently residing in the Poinar collections maintained by the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. The specimen was collected from the La Toca amber mine, northeast of Santiago de los Caballeros
Santiago de los Caballeros
Santiago de los Caballeros is a city in the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1495 during the first wave of European colonization of the New World, today Santiago is the second largest metropolis in the Dominican Republic, located in the north-central region of the Republic known as Cibao valley...
, in the Cordillera Septentrional
Cordillera Septentrional
The Cordillera Septentrional runs parallel to the north coast of the Dominican Republic, with extensions to the northwest, the Tortuga island, and to the southeast, the Samaná Peninsula where it becomes the Sierra de Samaná. Its highest mountain is Diego de Ocampo, close to Santiago de los...
area of the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. It was first studied studied by Dr. George Poinar
George Poinar, Jr.
George O. Poinar, Jr. is an entomologist and writer. He is known for popularizing the idea of extracting DNA from insects fossilized in amber, an idea which received widespread attention when adapted by Michael Crichton for the book and movie Jurassic Park.Poinar earned a B.S. and M.S. at Cornell...
of the UC, Berkeley and Dr. Rolf Singer
Rolf Singer
Rolf Singer was a German-born mycologist and one of the most important taxonomists of gilled mushrooms in the 20th century....
from the Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
in Chicago, Illinois. Poinar and Singer published their 1990 type description in the journal Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. The generic epithet Coprinites is in reference to the genus similarity to the modern genus Coprinus
Coprinus
Coprinus is a small genus of mushrooms consisting of Coprinus comatus and several of its close relatives. Until 2001, Coprinus was a large genus consisting of all agaric species in which the lamellae autodigested to release their spores...
. The specific epithet "dominicana" was coined by the authors in reference to the Dominican Republic where the fossil was recovered.
When initially published Coprinites dominicana was the first species of agaric fungus to be described. Two more species Protomycena electra
Protomycena
Protomycena is an extinct monotypic genus of gilled fungus in the Mycenaceae family, of order Agaricales. At present it contains the single species Protomycena electra, known from a single specimen collected in an amber mine in the Cordillera Septentrional area of the Dominican Republic...
and Aureofungus yaniguaensis
Aureofungus
Aureofungus is an extinct monotypic genus of gilled fungus in the order Agaricales. At present it contains the single species Aureofungus yaniguaensis....
have since been described from fossils found in the amber mines of the Dominican Republic, while the fourth species Archaeomarasmius leggeti
Archaeomarasmius
Archaeomarasmius is an extinct genus of gilled fungus in the Agaricales family Tricholomataceae, containing the single species Archaeomarasmius leggetti. It is known from two fruit bodies recovered from amber, one consisting of a complete cap with a broken stem, the other consisting of a fragment...
is from older Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
age New Jersey Amber. With the 2007 publication of a fifth extinct agaric species, Palaeoagaracites antiquus
Palaeoagaracites
Palaeoagaracites is an extinct monotypic genus of gilled fungus in the order Agaricales. At present it contains the single species Palaeoagaracites antiquus....
the age for the order was pushed back to the Albian
Albian
The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous epoch/series. Its approximate time range is 112.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 99.6 ± 0.9 Ma...
(approximately 100 Ma).
Description
The holotype of Coprinites is a lone fruiting body without any associated structures and a partly disarticulated stipeStipe (mycology)
thumb|150px|right|Diagram of a [[basidiomycete]] stipe with an [[annulus |annulus]] and [[volva |volva]]In mycology a stipe refers to the stem or stalk-like feature supporting the cap of a mushroom. Like all tissues of the mushroom other than the hymenium, the stipe is composed of sterile hyphal...
preserved in a piece of clear yellow amber approximately 9–6 mm (0.354330708661417–0.236220472440945 in) and weight 0.5 gram (0.017636981052556 oz). The pileus
Pileus (mycology)
The pileus is the technical name for the cap, or cap-like part, of a basidiocarp or ascocarp that supports a spore-bearing surface, the hymenium. The hymenium may consist of lamellae, tubes, or teeth, on the underside of the pileus...
is 3.5 millimetre (0.137795275590551 in) in diameter and has a convex shape sporting a small central depression. The brownish-pink flesh is thin with a scaly-pectinate surface. The margin is striated and slightly flared. Coprinites sports fifteen nondeccurent lamellae, or gills, which reach the outer pileus and thirteen lamellulae, short gills which do not reach the edge, of varying lengths. The pileus is centered on the stipe, which is 4 millimetre (0.15748031496063 in) in diameter and incomplete, with part of the stipe base preserved in the amber next to the pileus. The light brown basidiospores, present on the hymenium
Hymenium
The hymenium is the tissue layer on the hymenophore of a fungal fruiting body where the cells develop into basidia or asci, which produce spores. In some species all of the cells of the hymenium develop into basidia or asci, while in others some cells develop into sterile cells called cystidia or...
associated with the fruiting body, are smooth and ellipsoidal to oblong. Each basidiospore is approximately 6 to7 μm long and appear to possess a germ pore.
Coprinites was originally placed in the family Coprinaceae based on the visible structures, or macromorphology of the fruiting body and the microscopic features preserved in the amber specimen. The combination of characters present did not match any modern genus of the mushroom order Agaricales
Agaricales
The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms , or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families, 413 genera, and over 13000 described species, along with five extinct genera known only from the fossil record...
leading Poinar and Singer to erect the genus Coprinites. The lack of autodeliquescence along with the mushrooms morphology lead David Hibbett
David S. Hibbett
David Hibbett is an associate professor in biology at Clark University. He is considered one of today's leading researchers "in the analysis of fungal relationships through DNA analysis." At Clark he concentrates his lab work in evolutionary biology and ecology of Fungi.He spent 1991 as a Science...
, Michael Donoghue and David Grimaldi
David Grimaldi
David A. Grimaldi is an entomologist and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He received his graduate training at Cornell University, where he earned his doctorate in Entomology in 1986. Dr. Grimaldi is an authority in many fields of insect...
to question the placement of Coprinites. They noted the characters of the genus are similar to those of Leucocoprinus
Leucocoprinus
Leucocoprinus is a genus of fungi in the family Agaricaceae. Its best known member is the yellow pot-plant mushroom , found worldwide. The type species is Leucocoprinus cepistipes...
genus mushrooms. They suggested that Coprinites could be treated as either a member of Coprinaceae or Agaricaceae
Agaricaceae
The Agaricaceae are a family of basidiomycete fungi and includes the genus Agaricus, as well as basidiomycetes previously classified in the families Tulostomataceae, Lepiotaceae, and Lycoperdaceae. The genus contains 85 genera and 1340 species.-Genera:...
, to which Leucocoprinus belongs. With a number of molecular studies a large portion of the genera formerly placed in Coprinaceae, including Coprinus, have been moved into Agaricaceae. Thus supporting the suggestion of Hibbet, Donoghue, and Grimaldi.