Abstract: Nucleic acid probes are described for detecting fungi capable of causing fungal septicemia or capable of causing food spoilage. The preferred probes are complementary to ribonucleic acid sequences found in numerous fungi and absent in animal or plant genomes. As such, these probes can detect the rRNA, rDNA, or polymerase chain reaction amplification products from the majority of fungal species. The detection of etiological agents of human fungemia, the clinical diagnosis of this disease and the direct evaluation of food or beverage fungal content utilizing rRNA or rDNA probes is now possible.