Marine fungi deteriorating chitin of hydrozoa and keratin-like annelid tubes

Higher marine fungi were found for the first time as degraders of chitinous exoskeletons of hydrozoa and of keratinous (?) tubes of annelids. Collections were made in several locations of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Fruiting bodies and hyphae of the ascomycete Abyssomyces hydrozoicus Kohlm. occurred on hydrozoa at a depth of 631 to 641 m near the South Orkney Islands. Sterile mycelia, some of them resembling Dictyonema zoophytarum Reinsch, were collected on hydrozoa on the North Carolina coast, and offshore at a depth of 46 to 73 m. Tubes of the polychaete Chaetopterus variopedatus (Renier) washed ashore in California contained ascocarps and mycelia of Lulworthia sp. Hyphal growth on and in the animal tubes is described and illustrated.