Herbivore dung - Have a dung day!

[CapAndBracket]

X20

Gill shot of the fungi at X20 shows up the beauty of construction that
nature can achieve.


X1000

The narrow oblong spores make this Coprinus stercoreus.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Don't some fungi just change appearance as they grow, makes life difficult
as i notice in other threads, anyway spent quite a bit of time on keys and
books for possible id,s on these. (for coprinus try the dutch online key, oh
dear we didn't know there were so many coprinus.sp).

http://www.grzyby.pl/coprinus-site-K...s/Coprinus.htm

The tall one is now on slide for hopefully some spores tommorow, the best i
can make of them so far is rather small Coprinus radiatus. these are on old
dear pellets.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

X20

Found today on deer pellets, hopefully i've managed to get the cross
lighting to highlight the spines (setae) that ornament these which make them
quite easy to identify in the field with a magnifying glass.


X1000

From the shape of the ascus and spore size these are Lasiobolus ciliatus
(Richardson+Watling).

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Still trying to get better at ID,s of these beauties, this one has the
makings of Podospora globosa.


X100


X1000 in cotton blue

Curiously in cotton blue the appendages on the spores can be seen while the unripe spores
are still in the ascus


X1000 in cotton blue

But appendages on the ejected ripe spores are very difficult indeed to interpret.


X1000 in Gentian violet.

So i went a bit nonconformist and tried another squash using gentian violet, this did show
up the sticky appendage quite nicely (but it's messy to work with). This seemed keen to dye
everything so now wondering if somehow could use it then flush most of the slide before
putting under scope.

Cheers J.P.

[Chris Yeates]

alternatively you purchase a microscope with Nomarski differential interference contrast optics and this is what you get - who needs stains when every subtlety is accentuated; I have phase contrast which helps a lot but this is something else

how about this one of an aero-aquatic microfungus:
Photo of Clathrosphaerina zalewskii

or this of a Paramecium
http://rhowey.googlepages.com/Parame...1550-large.jpg

or this of a tardigrade:
http://www.tardigrada.net/images/TNW...ae%20(DIC).jpg

the top one was taken by a mycologist friend in New Zealand - he refuses to tell me how much it cost (!) I bet selling a kidney wouldn't come close; he had someone from Olympus at his house for two days just setting it up

Chris

[CapAndBracket]

Oh well, its going to be low quality images for me
Now i can see how some people can talk in such detail about
the microscopic detail of species.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

X20

So far no tardigrade, but did spot this critter (arrowed) wandering amongst
developing fungi on a bunny currant, sorry about quality it was a quick snap
down the scope as he sure wasn't going to keep still.

Cheers J.P.

[flaxton]

Originally Posted by CapAndBracket

X20

So far no tardigrade, but did spot this critter (arrowed) wandering amongst
developing fungi on a bunny currant, sorry about quality it was a quick snap
down the scope as he sure wasn't going to keep still.

Cheers J.P.

That's a poor shot JP these little beauties (spring-tails?) are usually bright shiny things full of colour under my microscope

Mal

[Chris Yeates]

hi

I assume you've identified those spiny white jobs? my money would be on the hyphomycete Volutella ciliata

go on! tell me they've got asci . . . .

cheers

Chris

[CapAndBracket]

Yea i know it was another bad photo, he looked very nice by eyesight.

Chris's species isn't in my book so i looked it up on the net, will try for
micro details i next couple of days, i think the cross lighting may have made
a yellow fungi look white so expect asci (oh iv'e been wrong before).

Cheers J.P.

[Deer Stalker]

Havn't seen much Nail Fungus on the Forest this season, but managed to find some last week.

[NickCantle]

You lucky thing Si

[CapAndBracket]

It seem to be a holly grail amongst fungi and have yet to see it.
There has been some talk about rescue of this once apparently common
fungi, but i have heard little about any results.

Action plan for Poronia punctata

Now there are lots of animals back on my local common i keep hopeing it has
arrived with them (or maybe i could instigate its return!).

NickC, i believe it was recorded in the past as coastal in east anglia, there
is even a suggestion it was associated with sand dunes/bunny currants.

The C.sterquilinus i found this year (on 4 occasions) is actually less recorded
than Nail Fungus but dosn't seem to excite people as much, anyway i'm
certainly hopeing to find that again next year, so far the bowl of pony buns
i have seeded with this species spores has produced nothing (except various
larvae) but maybe fruit bodies will appear with rising temperatures in the
spring.

I gess most people have something in mind that will be an exciting find one
day for them, so keep looking it will happen.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

X20

Ascobolus perplexans, from bunny currant.


X1000 in cotton blue.

The middle spore gives the best impression of how striate (ridged) these spores are,
and anastomising (joining together forming a net like pattern), this fearture along with
average size 22x10 um are a good fit with description (Ellis+Ellis).
Note unripe spores in the asci are hyaline (clear).



This just illustrates once again how many Pilobolus.sp can appear on a pony bun collected a
few days ago, the theory is that these appear first as they have fast metabolism but can
only metabolise simple sugars, so are followed by acomycetes that can brake down more
complex molecules (this takes time), a week or two should see them appearing, with probably
several hundred species not found by me yet there is always a chance of something new appearing.


Cheers J.P.

[Chris Yeates]

hi J.P.

I think that your perplexans might be furfuraceus

the spores of the former actually 'blister' the outer coat off (I'll PM you the relevant page from the New Zealand book)

there appear to be only two localized records of perplexans for Great Britain as well - so if you feel pretty certain of your ID I would definitely keep a dried specimen

fantastic view of the Pilobolus - who needs toadstools?!

best wishes

Chris

[CapAndBracket]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

hi J.P.

I think that your perplexans might be furfuraceus

the spores of the former actually 'blister' the outer coat off (I'll PM you the relevant page from the New Zealand book)

there appear to be only two localized records of perplexans for Great Britain as well - so if you feel pretty certain of your ID I would definitely keep a dried specimen

fantastic view of the Pilobolus - who needs toadstools?!

best wishes

Chris

You really are very helpfull and i am most gratefull,
always ready to be wrong rather than mis-record anything.

A.furfurasceus was my second choice, but i found a good number of those
in the spring and they seemed to be more cup shape compared with this
i would describe as cusion like.

another odd thing was that these seemed to have gone brown after purple
maturity


I may be missinterpreting what i see but the markings (which i havn't imaged
well) did match those in the book.


X1000



Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

There is some doubt about the previous which may still prove to be
A.furfurasceous, so i have put the remains on agar plate but these are famous
for not culturing well, anyway onwards and upwards.


Ascobolus albidus on deer pellet (arrowed) those nearby are different
species.


X20


X100 in a drop of water.
Complete fruit body, a full 0.3mm.


X100 gentle squash complete fruit body.


X1000 Asci/spores (unripe hyaline, ripe purple).

Cheers J.P.

[NickCantle]

You're doing a sterling job of this J.P- you'll have to give me a few 'scope tips next time we meet.

[CapAndBracket]

The scope seems to be just keep trying and accept a high percentage of
failure, (90% of my images go in the bin), trying to get a clean sample is a
large part of the problem, for podospora i can see i will be trying to culture
in agar so i can suspend a slide over the fruit bodies and catch ejected ripe
spores would be a real imporvement.

After a lot of fiddling with a fruit body in a drop of stain (using a pin) i did
manage this shot.


Podospora globosa spores X1000

Congo red this time which did high light some spore appendages nicely, odd
that the unripe spore is larger than the ripe one, wonder if being soft it took
up stain which made it swell.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Another odd find, arrowed in the image, a club shapped group of spores!


X1000

The best match i can find is a conidia of the hyphomycete
Alternaria alternata, worth a google.

Cheers J.P.

[Chris Yeates]

no need to google J.P. it's Alternaria alternata all right . . . do I also espy disarticulating Sporormiella spores?

cheers

Chris

PS did you see my post about Peziza fimeti? I realised when I'd done it that it would have been better here on this thread . . . doh!

[CapAndBracket]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

no need to google J.P. it's Alternaria alternata all right . . . do I also espy disarticulating Sporormiella spores?

cheers

Chris

PS did you see my post about Peziza fimeti? I realised when I'd done it that it would have been better here on this thread . . . doh!

Thanks for both in agreement with my thoughts, the google i thought may be
wothwhile as it seems the A.alternata is interesting, toxic

Your find looked good enought for it's own thread and kept me busy some of
last evening, some internet sources equate it with P.bovina, but Ellis +Ellis
don't, it was another learning experience as P.fimeti seems variable in form
from sesile to having a distinct stem. The variability of species is something
we can only get a handle on with experience.

Cheers J.P.