Happy Moth Day

Polyphemus moth cocoon

I found this cocoon on the ground, while poking around in the woods. It was a nice clean white when I found it (later I read that they turn tan after the moth emerges. How? Why? I don't know). It had some heft to it (meaning there was probably someone inside), and it looked a little moist on one end. I had a tiny feeling of memory of reading that right before the moth emerges, they secrete something that softens the cocoon, to make it easier to get out, but I didn't know what I was seeing; maybe it was just damp from lying on the ground. I put it in my shirt pocket.

I wanted to hike to a different spot, and I went back to the car to regroup. It was too warm to leave it in the car, and too dangerous for the cocoon to drag it around in my shirt pocket, so I found a nearby tree and laid it on the ground nearby, out of sight. I came back a half-hour later and it had emerged!

Here he is, well-camouflaged near the base of the tree.

Antheraea polyphemus

It's a big, fat, beautiful male Polyphemus moth! Those huge feathery antennae are a sure sign it's a male. Nothing better for catching a female's pheromones on the wind, they tell me.

And to that poor lady I've never seen before who was going to her car with her three yellow labs while I was taking 136 pictures of this, who I told to "Put your dogs in the car and come here! You have to see this!," who was very good-natured and did put her dogs in the car and come over to see it, and took pictures with her cellphone and everything, and seemed to really enjoy it and thanked me sincerely for showing her, I'd like to say, "Thank you for indulging me, a perfect stranger, and sharing my excitement." 

*Edit: I met some people on a trail 2-3 years later and we chatted briefly about the woods and our hikes, and she said, "You look familiar--are you the moth woman I met at Gans Creek?"--and I was.

Antennae to die for

His antennae are fully 3/4" wide, each. Doesn't get much better than this.

Here is the post describing my finding the cocoon and everything.

It's a male Polyphemus moth, Antheraea polyphemus.
Here's some good ID book links
A Field Guide to the MOTHS of Eastern North America (Peterson Field Guides)
Butterflies of North America (Kaufman Field Guides)

Also, I found some morels, but I didn't care

The morels I found on this day were pretty much overshadowed by the emerging Polyphemus moth I found.

Still, my first love is mushrooms.

Dryad's Saddle, in a big way

Polyporus squamosus.
My open pocket knife is 5-3/8" long.
The grey cast on the ground is dropped spores.
These are getting a little older; young, fresh specimens are more yellow (and you can see them from really far away).

These are perfectly edible, but it's one of the weirdest things I've ever tasted. They smell just like watermelon rind, or cucumber. Maybe if I didn't expect them to taste like "mushrooms" I would like them better.

I dunno, some people really like them; I'd try them again.

Black cup fungi

Pseudoplectania or Plectania or what?, originally uploaded by Mycologista.

Everybody assumed these were Devil's Urn (Urnula craterium) except they're not growing in the right place, among some other features that didn't line up. U. craterium grows on smallish sticks. I found lots of these, all jammed up tight against the base of Eastern Red Cedars. They're also much smaller than devil's urns, biggest only about 1/2" across.

To be fair, the big one in the center (above) with the nice fringed edge probably IS a standard devil's urn. But all the little ones behind, not.

Michael Kuo himself, the rock star of mushroom book authors (his books are hugely useful and highly entertaining), has offered to take a closer look at them. His website, www.mushroomexpert.com, is the go-to site for mycophiles.

I'll eventually get around to sending some dried specimens to him. The poor guy, he's swamped with "What's THIS?" e-mails, including from me. Well, you makes your bed, you sleeps in it.

*Update: I've passed this around and a few actual mushroom people agree that it's probably Plectania. Or Pseudoplectania. Not much info out there on these for us amateurs.


It's really a great book. Too bad I don't actually OWN it.
*Edit sometime in fall, 2011: I own it now! I am proud and happy!

Killdeer protest

Hey! Look what happens when you get too close to a Killdeer on her nest, before she breaks and runs off with a fake broken wing, trying to lure you away.
I never knew about those beautiful orange under-feathers before.

Moth parts, Hyalophora cecropia

So. This is a MALE (see previous post, "Cecropia moth"), and these are his claspers that he would have used if he ever found a willing female, but he never went to find one. I would find him each morning positioned like this. When I would move the container to get a better look, he would close this up.


The helpful crew at bugguide.net told me the females usually don't fly off, but instead stay put and point their magic pheromone-wand in the air to attract males. Not having ever seen a female Cecropia moth's pheromone organ, I thought that's what was going on here.

We don't know why he never flew off.

Cecropia moth

Hyalophora cecropia

My neighbor's kid got a Cecropia moth caterpillar at camp, and she raised it all summer in a plastic jug; they called me early this morning to tell me it had emerged. Everybody had to leave for the day, so I took it to my place. I spent all day with this dopey beauty, keeping an eye on it while it got itself organized; I wanted to be there when it decided to fly off, so I could let it out of its container when it was ready to leave, so it wouldn't bash up its wings fluttering around inside. Eventually (seven hours later) I started to lose patience and took it outside and took the lid off and encouraged it to crawl onto a stick, whereupon I lifted it out of the container, and took a million photos, and it still didn't do anything except rearrange its grip. So I propped the stick up in the container and left it alone.

Another three hours, now dark out, still there. It could be a female, I read they mostly sit around and put out pheromones, but the extra-large antennae say male, so who knows.

That fur! Those colors! I can't stand it!

 Male Cecropia moth

Update: with help from the friendly people at bugguide we got it all sorted out. It's a male (huge antennae), who wasn't acting like a typical male Cecropia moth by flying off to find a mate. I say it's a free country, and we'll all adjust.

Greenhouse foray

Here's some stuff I found during some regular visits to the campus greenhouse, in the middle of winter, when it was in the single digits for days. These were all taken in mid-January.

Here we find blooming Hoya javanica (common name "Shooting Star" for some crazy reason), cacao fruit, and Davallia fern (the underside of the leaves, showing the sori).

Well, no title needed HERE....

originally uploaded by Mycologista.

Found this tree on campus.

Grisette--Amanita vaginata--and Clavulinopsis laeticolor

"Grisette," Amanita vaginata.

 Common name refers to a French working-class woman, usually a part-time "flirt;" from "gris" (grey), the color of the cheap unbleached clothing they wore.
Anyway, these mushrooms have characteristic striated cap edges, a ring and a nice volva.
Bonus: this photo appears in Michael Kuo's latest book, "Mushrooms of the Midwest"!











Tiny orange coral, probably Clavulinopsis laeticolor.

Purple Russula & Fat Coral Mushroom

Lovely coral fungus, Ramaria sp.













Russula mariae (best guess). Russulas are not easy to identify without checking a lot of different features, none of which I was aware of when I found this.

Destroying Angel and Common Split-gill

Schizophyllum commune, "common split-gill" (very young ones)

Amanita bisporigera, "Destroying Angel." Most field guides call this A. virosa (or A. verna, depending on whether or not it turns yellow when KOH is applied), but those turn out to be European species. 

Amanita bisporigera's large ring on stem

Netted Rhodotus and old Laccaria

 

Netted Rhodotus, Rhodotus palmatus

Something else, I'd say an old Laccaria ochropurpurea

Boletes and Tremella fuciformis with Ophiostoma epigloeum

Lumpy Bolete
Dimpled cap points to Leccinum, maybe.
 














Another bolete, slowly bruising blue

Little jelly (about 1-1/2")

Tremella fuciformis.

See the little black spines? That's a parasitic fungus that only grows on T. fuciformis. I don't remember how I chanced upon that bit of information. I learned it as Ophiostoma epigloeum, apparently now it's Sporothrix epigloea.

Chanterelle motherlode!

HUGE field of chanterelles. Every orange spot you can see is another one. Goes to edge of frame.
Click for life-sized experience.
 

Black-footed polypore, Polyporus badius

Didn't know what these were for a while. They were pliable, and BIG. Underside white and smooth.
Polyporus badius.
These change appearance pretty dramatically over the course of their lives, very young ones are pale grey with a smooth rounded outline, from a distance they look like oyster mushrooms. They turn a dark reddish brown as they mature.

Laetiporus cincinnatus looks just like cooked chicken

 















NOT chicken, chicken of the woods MUSHROOM!

The hunt and capture of the chicken of the woods

Top two images are first day; bottom is next day.

Found this sitting there under a tree in a park, minding its own business (as far as I could tell). This very choice edible, this Laetiporus cincinnatus ("chicken of the woods"). Ran home to get positive ID (this is kind of funny now, as it is considered one of the easiest for beginners to ID. Now I would know in one second, but this really was in the very first month of my mushroom fascination, and the first one I'd ever seen). Positively identified it, it was quite a young specimen, went back the next day to nab it (after hardly being able to sleep, worrying that someone else would find it) and I was horrified to find the park swarming with hundreds of people for some event, was sure someone would have messed with it. But I could see this sucker from the parking lot, because it was so big, and so luminous. I snuck up on it and cut it. I don't understand why no one else seemed to have seen it, or kicked it, or picked it. I've got a picture of it from about 200' away, looking like a plastic milk bottle or a grocery bag in the distance.

As they get older they start to flare out into more shelf-like fans, and they get dry and woody, so you can really only eat the outer edges. Not my problem.

Although it seemed to be growing from the grass, it was actually attached to an underground root; these always grow on wood (not logs--trees with some life still in them).

Sauteed, not mushroomy at all, a completely new flavor. Great meaty texture.

Risotto w/ mushroom & gorgonzola--I died.

Did I mention it weighed over 2-1/4 pounds? Well, it did. And that's a small one--I've seen pictures of HUGE growths of them, "over 30 lbs," they say.

Coral Mushroom--Ramaria

Ramaria formosa. A beautiful coral mushroom, about 6" tall.