Lookie!
I was poking along in the woods on a chilly mid-November morning, found a stick with a bunch of little white bracket fungi on it, turned it over and found this surprise—a little beetle (Seven-spotted Lady Beetle, Coccinella septempunctata), taking refuge on the underside of a Schizophyllum commune.
When I viewed it full-screen, there was another surprise—there’s actually a tiny bug on the beetle! On the bigger black spot, that little tan thing. Jan. 17 edit: the tiny bug on the beetle is a springtail, a Collembola--those things are everywhere.
Whoo! I love me some Schizophyllum commune.
The big central one is about an inch across.
Those aren’t gills, it is a folded pore surface that looks like gills.
