Subject: Re: cave fungi

From: [email-masked] (Lester Pasarell)
Date: 19 Apr 1996 07:00:45 -0700

>Dear mycopeople,
>	A friend and myself are fungus enthusiasts and are taking a cave 
>trip soon.  I'm looking for ways to isolate fungi in nature (in this case 
>a cave).  I plan to take some potato dextrose plates with me.  Do any of 
>you guys know about "bait traps", or any other way to catch the myco's?
>
>						Thanks, Isaac Forquer
>
>please send directly to : [email-masked]
>
>

Soil samples from caves inhabited by bats are extremely dirty since they
have "guano" or bat dudu ....so Potato dextrose plates will not do the
job...you will have fast growing fungi all over the plates.
It will depend on what type of fungus are you trying to isolate so
that you prepare the medium in advance for example if you are trying to
isolate dermatophyes or keratinophilic fungi a good bait would be
horse hair or human hair.
A good book with all kind of media for growing and isolating fungi from
the environment is:

Mycology Guidebook, Mycology Guidebook Committee, Mycological Society of
America. Russell B. stevens, Editor. University of Washington Press
Seattle and London. 1981. 
isbn 0-295-95841-3

but there are many other mycology books with techniques for isolating micro
fungi from the environment....
I do hope that you are sure that the caves that you are visiting do 
not have Histoplasma capsulatum infected bats and if they do, that
you take precautionary measures for your protection and no you do not
have to be immunocompromised to get this fungus in your lungs...just
the right amount of conidia.

please let me know if you need additional information

Lester

Lester Pasarell-Luiggi                        e mail= [email-masked]
Medical Mycology Reference Laboratory                 [email-masked]
Department of Pathology
University of Texas Medical Branch            http://fungus.utmb.edu/myco.htm
Galveston, Tx 77555-0609                      409-747-2439 laboratory
                                              409-747-2437 Fax