Tiny New Fungus Hints at Nature’s Mysteries, Scientists Say

A new class of fungi discovered in a British pond demonstrates just how little we know about the microbes around us, scientists say.

David Hawksworth, a British researcher, suggested in 1990 that only about 5 percent of fungi species had been discovered. The newly found family was named cryptomycota, or “hidden fungi,” by investigators who have tracked it in soil, freshwater and aquatic sediments. Scientists first spotted the new microbes in water from the grounds of the University of Exeter’s Streatham campus.