Mucorales
Basal lineages of terrestrial fungi are traditionally summarized to the Zygomycota in a colloquial sense (Voigt 2012). The conquest of land as earliest fungi facilitated the invention of aplanosporic mitospores which do not rely on water for dispersal. Based on the potential to form zygospores during conjugation of two yoke-shaped gametangia it is referred to a phylogenetically coherent group named the Zygomycota for zygosporic fungi, even though these basal fungal clades lack phylogenetic resolution at the molecular level (James et al. 2006). Molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed the dispersal of this phylum into four subphyla (Hibbett et al. 2007; Hoffmann et al. 2011) and one phylum(Humber 2012).

Absidia proposed by (Van Tieghem 1876), classifies in the subphylum Mucoromycotina, order Mucorales, family Cunninghamellaceae (Voigt 2012). It includes mesophilic species morphologically characterized by producing sporangiophores arising from stolons and apophysate sporangia with deliquescent walls. A septum is frequently observed below the sporangium (Benny 2009). Zygospores enveloped by appendages are produced by sexual reproduction after conjugation of heterothallic gametangia (Hoffmann et al. 2007).

Species of Absidia are commonly isolated from soil and animal dung (Richardson 2009) and the last species proposed to this genus was A. idahoensis Hesselt., M.K. Mahoney & S.W. Peterson, isolated from honey bees in the state of Idaho, USA (Hesseltine et al. 1990). In 2001, A. graminea L.S. Loh was described in Malaysian (Loh et al. 2001), but it was considered invalid for not having a holotype deposited in a Culture Collection (http://www.indexfungorum.org; accessed 25 June 2015).

During a study on the Mucorales from semi-arid regions in Brazil, an Absidia specimen that differs morphologically and genetically from the other species of the genus was isolated and is being described as new to science. Another Absidia specimen was isolated from soil of Dokdo Island in Korea, which differs morphologically and phylogenetically from any other species within the genus. Furthermore, a new species of Gongronella was described from forest soil in the Jeonnam Province in Korea. At the generic level Gongronella is related to Absidia within the Cunninghamellaceae (Voigt 2012) (Fig. 163).