Teleomorph state: Cordyceps thaxteri Mains

Specimens were found on underside of living leaves of forest plants. Hosts are spiders. Stroma of white mycelium completely covering the host. Synnemata brown at the sterile base, becoming cream to grey-white when conidia present, erect, numerous, simple (occasionally branched), cylindrical, up to 15 mm high, 50-100 μm diam., up to 200 μm diam. because of chains of spores, hyphal strands composed of brownish cells 2.5-10 x 2.5-4 μm. Phialides in a monolayer, crowded, obovoid (when immature) to ellipsoid, minutely verrucose, 5.0-11.5 x 3.5-5.5 μm, with a round apex and a short but distinct neck, 0.5 x 0.5 μm. Conidia catenate, one-celled, smooth-walled, hyaline, narrowly obclavate, 6.0-13.5 x 1.5-2.5 μm. Conidia germinate after 24 h on PDA. Colonies are slow growing, attaining a diam. of 1 cm in 1 mo at 25 oC and have a white mycelium. A red-brown pigment is produced in the agar. This species was originally described from North America and is found in association with Cordyceps thaxteri. However, in Thailand we have not found a Cordyceps state associated with the Akanthomyces.

Mains, E.B. (1950). Entomogenous species of Akanthomyces, Hymenostilbe and Insecticola in North America. Mycologia 42: 566-589. Hywel-Jones, N.L. (1996). Akanthomyces on spiders in Thailand. Mycological Research 100: 1065-1070.