Herbivore dung - Have a dung day!

[CapAndBracket]

1000X

The jelly discs on old cow dung have turned out to be a Saccobolus.sp.
In the micrograph the 8 ripe ascospores can be seen still in the ascus, there are several in the background which are develping and still lacking colour.
There is a sugestion that the colouration in ripe spores acts as a sunscreen protecting the cell contents from ultra violet radiation.

I should add the colour seen is natural, no stain used (just a drop of water).

Cheers J.P.

[cybershot]

As beautiful in colour and texture as some of the the more exotic fruitbodies John; it's no good I'm going to have to get my hands on Julie's instrument

David

[Meta menardi]

Originally Posted by Leif

The common one on dung is of course Peziza vesiculosa.

Well that's the last time I have Pizza.

[CapAndBracket]

The photo is such a small part of it, will try to sort more tommorow, these are remarkable, less than a millimeter across, as the asci mature they protrude out of the disc to shoot their spores (havn't heard of any of the larger species doing so). Water tends to bend light as we all know from putting a stick in the river, but kept as a very fine layer is a good medium for seeing natural colour of spores under the microscope, must remember to try on other spores throughout the year.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Originally Posted by Meta menardi

Well that's the last time I have Pizza.

Where is your sense of adventure, i'm don't know of any studies of fungi on Pizza, you could leave one in the shed and let us know what grows. !!

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Been out this morning and coprinus have started to appear on old cow dung,
happy hunting.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

A second Coprinus.sp from this morning, did wonder if it may be Panaeolus.sp but no sign of mottleing on the gills, spore micrographs for both in the unidentified fungi section.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

A better photo of the Saccobolus.sp, on old cow dung, max size 0.5 mm.
As usual fruit body fits one species description, the spore mass a different one.

Cheers J.P.

[solus]

If only I'd been interested in fungi years ago when I had a pony who produced copious quantities of pony-poo all over his field!

Now, I wonder what would have grown out of a recycled mixture of grass, hay, pony cubes, polo mints, carrots, chocoalte, jam sandwiches, seaside rock..... I could have made a small fortune posting bags of the stuff to all you mycologists out there to play with.

[CapAndBracket]

Originally Posted by cybershot

As beautiful in colour and texture as some of the the more exotic fruitbodies John; it's no good I'm going to have to get my hands on Julie's instrument

David

Well i hope you get your hands on Julies instrument, then i hope with your photographic expertise you can solve some of my microscope photo problems.

Some of a few microns depth are coming out quite good, but then it gets frustrating.
Today i had one of the tiny coprinus (cap minus stype) upside down on a slide, with through lighting from the scope and other light from surroundings, at 40X the view was something to behold.

Few gills, widely spaced, alternate gills only protruding 1/3 of distance from cap edge towards stype, basidia on gill faces and around linning undersurface of cap (what a picture), camera can only focus on one narrow level so photo's 90% fuzz. Arrrrrrrgh.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Originally Posted by solus

If only I'd been interested in fungi years ago when I had a pony who produced copious quantities of pony-poo all over his field!

Now, I wonder what would have grown out of a recycled mixture of grass, hay, pony cubes, polo mints, carrots, chocoalte, jam sandwiches, seaside rock..... I could have made a small fortune posting bags of the stuff to all you mycologists out there to play with.

It's never to late to start, tommorow collect one handful each of fresh and old pony buns, place in seperate sandwich boxes and put these on bedside table so you can check them night and morning. By April the 1st you will be hooked and following all manner of wildlife around with your little shovel ;>)))

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Count the dots (sporangia), as a wave of Pilobolus.sp have appeared on the Rabbit droppings overnight.

Cheers J.P.

[monkey]

Here is a picture of a fungi I found in the New Forest 2 weeks ago, it was only about 25ml tall but I thought it was quite pretty and have not managed to identify it! I have just seen this thread and thought maybe you could help me




Thank you very much Linda

[CapAndBracket]

Its a nice photo, really need more information, next time take a shot of the gills as well, there are several possibilities in the coprinus, Panaeolus, Psilocybe genre.

Cheers J.P.

Ps: thanks for posting it, i would be happy to find it today but with the amount of water falling out of the sky here i don't think i'm going looking.

[cybershot]

I immediately jumped to the conclusion it might be a Panaeolus species Linda, but on second thoughts the colour, striate margin and patches of velar remnants suggest Amanita fulva - Tawny Grisette. More research is needed maybe.

David

[solus]

Originally Posted by CapAndBracket

By April the 1st you will be hooked and following all manner of wildlife around with your little shovel ;>)))

Cheers J.P.

By April 1st I'd be divorced!!!

[CapAndBracket]

You've illustrated the problem nicely cybershot, i didn't think of Aminita, (not sure there is enought stem), the margin i couldn't decide, is it striate or are we seeing the gill attachment through the cap.

Cheers J.P.

[monkey]

Thank you very much for your replies unfortunately I am a complete novice when it comes to fungi and the other photo I took does not show any better the detail becuase I took it from crouching down and then realised you needed to be almost lying down to get it properly because it was so small. It was on some sort of dung out on the heathland amongst the heather and a small amount of bracken about 300yds from the forest perimeter. It only came to my notice because of the bright colour and being so attractive. There was only the one specimen on its own. Next time I will try and photo up under as well, like I have noticed you all do but this would have been extremely difficult given the size of it I had a job to even get the stem in shot!! Please let me know when you have managed to identify I am enjoying learning

[CapAndBracket]

i'm glad you are enjoying learning and don't worry about being a novice that describes most of us, i suggest you lay fungi on their side to photograph the gills.
If you wish to make a start on dung fungi, i would seriously suggest just start with a few bunny currants (they ain't noxious) from your nearest buch of wild bunnies. Place them on some damp tissue in a plastic (or glass) container with a loose fitting lid (a tight one will creat to much humidity and moldy substrate), but use a lid whenever not viewing or spores will be ejected. won't be many days and you will have your first crop of Piolobolus, a magnifying glass is ample to start with for seeing these, but if your into photography well send a photo.

For guidance on identifying fungi, there is a sticky called "How to identify mushrooms to genus " at the top of this forum, by Fungus Ken, very comprehensive.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

This morning all samples showing Pilobolus.sp, it all seems a bit slow but i gess this is down to low temperature which according to the forecast dosn't look like improving this week.

Cheers J.P.

[Fungus Ken]

Originally Posted by monkey

Here is a picture of a fungi I found in the New Forest 2 weeks ago, it was only about 25ml tall but I thought it was quite pretty and have not managed to identify it! I have just seen this thread and thought maybe you could help me



Thank you very much Linda

Here is how I would describe the cap of your specimen:

- shape conical
- colour rusty-brown, turning paler on drying (hygrophanous)
- translucently striate when moist ie you can see the gills through the cap as darker lines
- overall stature mycenoid (ie looks like a typical Mycena in stature but in this case the overall colours and habitat rule out the genus Mycena itself)

Together these characters would rule out any of the suggestions above. I don't think it is a Panaeolus or a Psilocybe and it is definitely not an Amanita. We don't have the spore colour, but I think it would probably have been ochre to rusty brown.

The characters point to the genus Conocybe, some species of which are saprotrophic on dung (ie feed by breaking down dung).

This genus contains a lot of species that are superficially similar and you can't really narrow the options down any further without microscopy.

Ken

[Fungus Ken]

Originally Posted by CapAndBracket

This morning all samples showing Pilobolus.sp, it all seems a bit slow but i gess this is down to low temperature which according to the forecast dosn't look like improving this week.

Cheers J.P.

Just checked back and it was 1994 when I did my own experiment with sheep dung.

I kept a rough estimate of the numbers of visible Pilobolus fruiting bodies, taking a count every three days. On one sample the numbers shot up to about 3000 by day 6 and then gradually tailed off over the next two weeks. Presumably by this stage this fungus had used up all its available substrate, or perhaps it had been outcompeted by other groups of fungi.

Ascomycetes, in the form of the genus Ascobolus, came next, appearing from about day 12, peaking in numbers of apothecia at about day 21, and then tailing off.

Fruit bodies of basidiomycetes, in this case Coprinus stercoreus (= Coprinopsis stercorea), didn't begin to appear until day 24.

I also had one fruiting body which keyed out to Coprinus patouillardii (and probably equates to Coprinus cordisporus in the current Basidiomycota Checklist).

All fascinating stuff.

Ken

[FungiJohn]

Originally Posted by Fungus Ken

Just checked back and it was 1994 when I did my own experiment with sheep dung.

I kept a rough estimate of the numbers of visible Pilobolus fruiting bodies, taking a count every three days. On one sample the numbers shot up to about 3000 by day 6 and then gradually tailed off over the next two weeks. Presumably by this stage this fungus had used up all its available substrate, or perhaps it had been outcompeted by other groups of fungi.

Ascomycetes, in the form of the genus Ascobolus, came next, appearing from about day 12, peaking in numbers of apothecia at about day 21, and then tailing off.

Fruit bodies of basidiomycetes, in this case Coprinus stercoreus (= Coprinopsis stercorea), didn't begin to appear until day 24.

I also had one fruiting body which keyed out to Coprinus patouillardii (and probably equates to Coprinus cordisporus in the current Basidiomycota Checklist).

All fascinating stuff.

Ken

Fascinating stuff indeed Ken.
John

[CapAndBracket]

Originally Posted by Fungus Ken

Just checked back and it was 1994 when I did my own experiment with sheep dung.

I kept a rough estimate of the numbers of visible Pilobolus fruiting bodies, taking a count every three days. On one sample the numbers shot up to about 3000 by day 6 and then gradually tailed off over the next two weeks. Presumably by this stage this fungus had used up all its available substrate, or perhaps it had been outcompeted by other groups of fungi.

Ascomycetes, in the form of the genus Ascobolus, came next, appearing from about day 12, peaking in numbers of apothecia at about day 21, and then tailing off.

Fruit bodies of basidiomycetes, in this case Coprinus stercoreus (= Coprinopsis stercorea), didn't begin to appear until day 24.

I also had one fruiting body which keyed out to Coprinus patouillardii (and probably equates to Coprinus cordisporus in the current Basidiomycota Checklist).

All fascinating stuff.

Ken

Thanks very much for your interest and many useful comments.

This investigation has been a bit rough and ready (like my spelling) but hopefully may inspire a few others and will be a good prequal to the future.

The different sorts of dung are certainly producing different (some very little so far) fruit bodies, so the next few weeks should continue to produce nice suprises.

I now know where i could get sheep dung and did wonder about that from geese. I will continue with what i have for a few weeks by which time some fungi in the field should be available.

I feel getting a grasp of dung fungi at genus level is a step forward, more precise ID isn't going to be easy, what literature is available is limited and i find that trawling the net as well produces various figures for number of species for example Pilobolus, but will attempt fine detail when time allows, it's all good practice with the microscope.

Maybe next winter will see a larger version of the experiment, i can see it would be good to get into platting out some onto agar and maybe micrographs of mycelia etc.

Nothing fresh to report this evening, the old cow dung still looks like it has achne with number of Saccobolus on it, most of the Pilobolus have fired their sporangia while it was sunny (logical), and two more beetles from the fresh cow dung which have been returned to the great outdoors.

Cheers J.P.