Protomycena

Protomycena Temporal range: Burdigalian PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Artist's reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Agaricales
Family:	Mycenaceae
Genus:	†Protomycena Hibbett, Grimaldi & Donoghue
Species:	P. electra
Binomial name
Protomycena electra Hibbett, Grimaldi & Donoghue
Protomycena is known only from amber deposits on the island of Hispaniola, north of South America

Protomycena is an extinct monotypic genus of gilled fungus in the family Mycenaceae, of order Agaricales. At present it contains the single species Protomycena electra, known from a single specimen collected in an amber mine in the Cordillera Septentrional area of the Dominican Republic. The fruit body of the fungus has a convex cap that is 5 mm (0.2 in) in diameter, with distantly spaced gills on the underside. The curved stipe is smooth and cylindrical, measuring 0.75 mm (0.030 in) thick by 10 mm (0.39 in) long, and lacks a ring. It resembles (currently living) species of the genus Mycena. Protomycena is one of only five known agaric fungus species known in the fossil record and the second to be described from Dominican amber.

The genus is known only from the holotype specimen, a single fruit body (mushroom) currently residing in the private collection owned by Ettore Morone of Turin, Italy. The specimen was collected in one of the amber mines in the Cordillera Septentrional area of the island of Hispaniola, in the Dominican Republic. The amber is believed to date from the Miocene Burdigalian stage, about 20 to 16 million years before the present. It was first studied by a group of researchers consisting of David Hibbett and Michael Donoghue from Harvard University, with David Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History. Hibbett and colleagues published their 1997 type description in the American Journal of Botany. The generic name Protomycena is derived from a combination of the Latin proto meaning "first", and "Mycena", a modern genus that it resembles. The specific epithet electra was coined by the authors from the Latin for "amber", in reference to the mode of preservation.