“…The search for extremophilic pigmented fungi, e.g., in the cryosphere of the Antarctic, untapped marine habitats, and high irradiation environment, may bring intriguing discoveries. These are exemplified by the recoveries of novel blue-pigmented fungus Antarctomyces pellizarize (from Antarctic snow), three red-colored Talaromyces albobiverticillius strains producing Monascus-like pigments without citrinin (from the coral rubbles of the west coast of Reunion Island, Southwestern Indian Ocean), and hyper-melanized fungus Paecilomyces lilacinus (from the surrounding area of the Chernobyl nuclear plant) [58,105,106]. In-depth insight into and a full understanding of the ecological adaption and physiological plasticity of pigmented fungi in the harsh environments can facilitate the domestication and development of outstanding fungal strains using a combination of directed evolution, synthetic biology, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.…”