Missouri post-drought hike, burrowing beetle—September backlog continues.

Man I’ve got a lot of images, as it turns out, from fall 2012. I thought since I skipped hiking for almost 3 months during the heat wave/drought that it wouldn’t be a big deal to get caught up! But it is!

This beetle was right in the middle of the trail, trying like heck to burrow into hard-packed dirt. He wouldn't stop moving so it was difficult to get a good shot of him. Thanks to the help of an entomologist pal, I now know it is an earth-boring dung beetle--a species of Bolbocerosoma. They are not uncommon, but spend most of their time in underground burrows up to 35" deep. Pretty industrious for a little beetle less than 1" long. They provision their larvae with food such as dung, carrion and leaf litter, like any good parent. 

I really wanted to give it a last name too, but after looking up many species I could not say with certainty what this one was. Many identifying features I did not capture.



Below, you can see the little tracks in a circle he’d made, going around and around, trying to burrow.





Above, maple seeds on a log that for some reason looks like a litho print.



Another one of those genius natural compositions. Three gem-studded puffballs with a carefully-placed maple seed (not by me. I just showed up).



Above, the tip of a comb tooth (Hericium coralloides). Pure white when young and fresh, this one is past its prime and would be sour if you ate it. That doesn't make it any less compelling a subject. Dragons, claws, fractals, paws.



A clear pool after some rain finally fell, Sept. 2012.

September Missouri mushrooms and more, the backlog resumes

If you’re just tuning in, we’re in the middle of a bunch of late posts.

There was a terrible drought and heat wave last summer (2012), I didn't bother hiking at all for nearly 3 months (no precipitation = no mushrooms to speak of), then there was some rain in early fall and some nice fall mushrooms did show up, but I had lost my blogging momentum. Now I’m trying to catch up so I can start posting this year’s spring finds! More pics, less talk!

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Pretty sure the young cream-colored one is Agaricus placomyces. The big wildly-cracked one might be A. placomyces, too, but it's too deteriorated for me to tell. All I know is it's cool.

That’s some ring! The rings on mushroom stems are from a sheet of tissue that used to cover the gills in the developing mushroom (a “partial veil,” they call it). As the cap expands, that sheet of tissue tears away from the edge of the cap, and stays attached to the stem.

I found an area that had a lot of this next stuff--Spongipellis pachyodon. First I found it on this log, and then I found it all over a tree on the other side of the trail.

Here’s how big it was.

Whoa!

This is the non-boring version; apparently it can also be just a toothless crusty patch.

Right across the trail, it was  different again, but the flat teeth, just like on the log version, gave it away. Please hold for teeth.

Pretty great shapes…

At the base of the tree I found very young growths. Here is one eating a leaf.

Just thought I’d toss some color in here, since all the other pics in this post are beige. This was a little mushroom, maybe 2” tall, and I should know what it is as it’s quite common, but I forget. But what about all that fuzz at the base of the stem? That is normal. ***Edit, two years later (10/10/2015): it's Marasmius sullivantii.



I was going for some shots of that reddish stuff which is a favorite slime mold, when this millipede showed up. I didn't realize it was actually a mating pair! They wouldn't stop rolling along on their million legs, and it was quite a dark little corner so I couldn't get a really good shot. But, “Seen millipedes mating: check.”

That bright white ball dead center is a puffball, Lycoperdon pulcherrimum. My shoe for size reference.

An older specimen, spines wearing off.

This seemingly undifferentiated mess on a rock had me stymied for a year. During dry times it was leathery and hardly noticeable. After a good rain, things got weird.

It’s a jelly lichen!

I didn't even know such a thing existed. My knowledge of mosses and lichens is slim to none, so this really didn't compute. Finally I posted it in the right place and some helpful soul piped up and offered some possibilities. It’s either Collema or Leptogium, that much is sure. I started looking both these up trying to
narrow it down and got hopelessly confused, so I quit.



I feel better knowing at least a little something about it.

Backlog assortment: Missouri fall finds.

Still in Sept., 2012...such bad practice.



An eggshell. I know not what kind of bird. A small one, though.

Young oysters.

A particularly luminous clump of young oyster mushrooms.



Oyster gills. Off-center stem, gills running down stem. Yes, I cut them off the tree—a girl’s got to eat!



When I got back to the car this leaf-footed bug was on the windshield.

~~~Note: these images were shot in September! Seed ticks aren't out yet!~~~

Seed ticks are really small, but you can see them…SO awful, so tiny, and often so many…once I looked down and thought there was a smear of mud on my jeans, but it was a solid swath of seed ticks, much worse than pictured here (and it was actually the second nest I'd crashed into, less than ten minutes after the first one--). I got the willies and aborted that hike. Miraculously, none got on me or bit me.

What a terrible way to end a blog post.