Cresponea ancistrosporelloides
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| Cresponea ancistrosporelloides | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Arthoniomycetes |
| Order: | Arthoniales |
| Family: | Opegraphaceae |
| Genus: | Cresponea |
| Species: | C. ancistrosporelloides |
| Binomial name | |
| Cresponea ancistrosporelloides Sparrius & Sipman (2011) | |
Cresponea ancistrosporelloides is a species of lichen in the family Opegraphaceae.[1] Known only from Stirling Range National Park in Western Australia, it was described as new to science in 2011. The specific epithet ancistrosporelloides refers to the similarity of its tailed spores to those of genus Ancistrosporella. The lichen forms pale grey crusts on volcanic rock and produces small black reproductive discs. It grows in dry shrubland at about 740 metres elevation and is one of only seven species in its genus found in Australia.
Cresponea ancistrosporelloides was formally described by Laurens Sparrius and Harrie Sipman from a single specimen collected in 1994 on the upper slopes of Toolbrunup peak in Western Australia's Stirling Range National Park. Although its tailed, many-celled spores recall those of the genus Ancistrosporella, the species lacks the lirellate fruiting bodies typical of that group. Instead it has small, rounded apothecia and an iodine-positive hymenium, characters that accord better with the crustose, largely tropical genus Cresponea. Because its spores also lack the thick walls and swollen septum edges considered diagnostic for Cresponea, the authors placed the taxon there only provisionally, pending broader phylogenetic work. Within the genus it is distinguished by its unusually long, spirally coiled basal spore appendage—an attribute unmatched in any other named species.[2]