Absidia Tiegh.
The genus Absidia Tiegh. (Cunninghamellaceae, Mucorales) was originally described by van Tieghem (1876) with type species A. reflexa Tiegh. (Hesseltine and Ellis 1964). To the best of our knowledge, 21 species of Absidia have been reported thus far (Kirk et al. 2008).

The species belonging to this genus are characterized by the production of stolons and sporangiophores bearing pyriform columellate sporangia with deliquescent walls with a septum below the apophysis; the sporangiophores of Absidia never arise opposite the rhizoids as found in Rhizopus (Hesseltine and Ellis 1964). Species of Absidia typically exhibit rapid growth at temperatures ranging from 25 °C to 34 °C, although some species are able to grow at temperatures between 12 °C and 37 °C (Hoffmann et al. 2007). They are frequently isolated from soil and dead or dying plant tissue (Hesseltine and Ellis 1964; Ho et al. 2004; Benny 2008). Several species of Absidia are implicated in diseases such as mucormycosis in humans and animals (Ribes et al. 2000; Santos et al. 2003; Hoffmann and Voigt 2009; Alastruey- Izquierdo et al. 2010). Since first described, some species of Absidia have been transferred to other genera, for example, Tieghemella Berl. & De Toni, Mycocladus Beauverie, and Proabsidia Vuill. However, with the exception of Lichtheimia, all are regarded as synonyms of Absidia (Hesseltine and Ellis 1964; Schipper 1990; Kirk et al. 2008). Recently, Hoffmann et al. (2007) revised the classification of the genus based on physiological, phylogenetic, and morphological characteristics. They observed different growth patterns under different temperature conditions, and divided the species into three groups, namely, thermotolerant (species that exhibited optimumgrowth between 37 and 45 °C), mesophilic (species that exhibited optimum growth between 25 and 34 °C), and mycoparasitic (species that are potentially parasitic on other fungi within the order Mucorales and exhibit optimum growth below 30 °C). Although the identification of species based on morphological characteristics is important in traditional taxonomy, the delimitation of species of mucoralean fungi requires the addition of molecular data (O’Donnell et al. 2001; Hoffmann et al. 2013; Walther et al. 2013). In a previous study, a new species, Absidia koreana was reported from a soil sample from Dokdo island, Korea (Ariyawansa et al. 2015b). The phylogenetic tree for Absidia is presented in Fig. 1.

While evaluating the diversity of fungi of the order Mucorales isolated from a sample of rat dung from Gwangju, Korea a new species, based on morphological characteristics and multi-gene phylogenetic analyses, was isolated and is described here.

Fig. 1 Phylogenetic tree for Absidia stercoraria EML-DG8-1 and EML-DG8-2 and related species based on Maximum likelihood analysis of multi-genes including 18S and 28S rDNA, actin (Actin-1) and translation elongation factor (EF-1α). Sequences of Umbelopsis nana and U. isabellina were used as outgroups. Bootstrap support values >50 % are indicated at the nodes. The bar indicates the number of substitutions per position. New taxa are in blue and ex-type strains in bold.

Species