Supplementary Developmental Stages of Basidiobolus ranarum and Basidiobolus haptosporus

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Abstract
The Basidiobolus producing a Streptomyces-like odor and forming zygospores with undulated contours, which occurs widely in leaf mold and other slowly decaying plant detritus in the eastern United States, is considered identical with B. ranarum, long studied in Europe in cultures prepared from the excrement or intestinal contents of frogs, toads, salamanders and lizards. At temperatures near 20[degree] C. it developed abundantly in maizemeal-agar plates canopied with excrement of frogs captured in central Maryland late in June. It was obtained again, though much less abundantly than B. meristosporus, in maizemeal-agar plates canopied at 27[degree] C. with frog excrement voided late in July after several weeks of hot mid-summer weather. The mycelium formed by B. haptosporus in maizemeal-agar cultures is relatively inconspicuous. It is very little given to serial development and produces phototropic conidiophores and globose conidia only sparingly. The zygospores formed by B. haptosporus have a smooth rather than an undulate outer profile. They often germinate after a resting period of 50 days, each giving rise to a broad conidiophore that shoots off a binucleated globose conidium. In aging Petri plate cultures of B. haptosporus and B. ranarum the binucleated condition may persist for months in successive generations of globose and of adhesive conidla, the binucleated spores becoming intermingled with the uninucleated spores derived earlier from the globose conidia produced by the individual hyphal segments.

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