Morphological and molecular identification of new species of Coprinopsis iraqicus sp. nov. from Iraq

The wild macro fungi, commonly named mushroom, have been rarely studied in Iraq for many reasons. In this study macrofungal specimens were collected from a site in the Tikrit province, Salah ad-Din, that located in the mid-north of Iraq from December to January 20192020 for describing a cryptic species of Coprinopsis depending on morphological and molecular analyses. Description of fruiting bodies on their microhabitats was recorded and photographed in their natural microhabitats. Molecular and phylogenetic analyses based on the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region were performed. In this study, the results of Bayesian and Maximum Likelihood phylogenetic analysis based on ITS nucleotide sequences and morphological description revealed that Coprinopsis iraqicus sp. nov. was a cryptic species and formed distinct morphological features and a clade among its related species belonging to the genus Coprinopsis. More studies are needed to determine the distribution of this genus generally and the presented species specifically.