| Summary: | In the course of investigations on the complex phenomenon of bee decline, <i>Aspergillus flavus</i> was isolated from the haemocoel of worker bees. Observations on the metabolomic profile of this strain showed kojic acid to be the dominant product in cultures on Czapek-Dox broth. However, an accurate review of papers documenting secondary metabolite production in <i>A. flavus</i> also showed that an isomer of kojic acid, identified as 5-(hydroxymethyl)-furan-3-carboxylic acid and named flufuran is reported from this species. The spectroscopic data of kojic acid were almost identical to those reported in the literature for flufuran. This motivated a comparative study of commercial kojic acid and 5-(hydroxymethyl)-furan-3-carboxylic acid, highlighting some differences, for example in the <sup>13</sup>C-NMR and UV spectra for the two compounds, indicating that misidentification of the kojic acid as 5-(hydroxymethyl)-furan-3-carboxylic acid has occurred in the past.
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