Readers’ wildlife photos

February 22, 2024 • 8:15 am

Today we have photos of fungi from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here are some photos from Copper Falls State Park in northern Wisconsin, taken last September. The park has miles of trails and buildings constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The falls are a great attraction, but my attention was also grabbed by mushrooms growing along the hiking path. Orange Mycena (Mycena leaiana) typically grows in clusters on rotting logs, but this batch was growing on a small section of fence on one of the trails. Among the miles of fencing, this was the only spot that I saw that had significant growth, so perhaps it wasn’t treated as thoroughly as the rest of the fencing. At any rate, it provided beautiful staging for this cluster of mushrooms.

I know they aren’t that kind of mushroom, but I couldn’t resist playing with several of the images to give them a jolt of color and a psychedelic vibe!

7 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos

  1. Very nice! When we hike around the Pacific Northwest, my wife always has her eye out for fungi and slime molds. Her favorite is the ever-popular Fuligo septica, the Dog-vomit Slime Mold. Very showy!

  2. What a beautiful batch of mushrooms! Great color.
    This is a great post after finishing the book-Entangled Life a couple of weeks ago.
    One of my favorite books of the year.

  3. Wonderful photos! Beautiful forms and brilliant color. What evolutionary advantage is achieved by being bright orange?

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