Ophiocordyceps halabalaensis: a new species of Ophiocordyceps pathogenic to Camponotus gigas in Hala Bala Wildlife Sanctuary, Southern Thailand.

Several fungal pathogens of ants have been reported as members of the family Ophiocordycipitaceae in the order Hypocreales. Surveys in the south of Thailand have shown specimens showing characteristics that are morphologically similar to Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a very common ant pathogen, by producing a lateral pad on one side of the stroma and producing whole ascospores. Phylogenetic analyses of the partial elongation factor tef1-α and the internal transcribed spacer regions ITS1-5.

Ophiocordyceps barnesii and its relationship to other melolonthid pathogens with dark stromata.

A hypocrealean Coleoptera pathogen with characteristic part-spores, collected from Khao Yai National Park and Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand, is reported. The overall morphology was similar to Cordyceps barnesii, which is known from Sri Lanka, with ascospores disarticulating into four unusually long part-spores that were 30-40 μm long. This disarticulation and part-spore size is, so far, unique within Cordyceps sensu lato.

A beauvericin hot spot in the genus Isaria.

Beauvericin is a naturally occurring cyclohexadepsipeptide originally described from Beauveria bassiana but also reported from several Fusarium species as well as members of the genus Isaria. Twenty-six isolates of Isaria species and its Cordyceps teleomorph, and ten taxonomically close strains including Beauveria, Nomuraea and Paecilomyces species were sequenced and tested for beauvericin production. Trees using ITS rDNA and beta-tubulin sequence data were constructed and used to infer the phylogenetic distribution of beauvericin production.