Named after the entomologist Joseph Alexandre Laboulbène, one of the first scientists to report their existence, the Laboulbeniales (“labouls” for short) are an obscure and enigmatic order of fungi, even to most mycologists. Measuring, on average, just a few hundred micrometers long (one thousand micrometers make up a millimeter), these microscopic yet multicellular fungi live their entire life on the surface of beetles, in symbiosis with their arthropod hosts.
