A couple of recent left-overs.
Some identifications have been added/amended for recent fungi. 8th October, 10th October, 11th October.
Heavy rain all day.
This leafy lichen - Lobaria pulmonaria - was growing on a couple of trees in Ards forest.
Sample shown about 20cm. tall.
I've recently been made aware of the existence of mycetophilidae - flies that lay their eggs in fungi. Many fungi are found to be infested with larvae. Most of these feed on mushroom spores, but some are carnivorous, and make mucus to trap their prey. I had noticed that one of the fungi I found this year was always very infested with larvae, and went looking for some specimens. I found this Suillus which was literally a pool of mucus swarming with the larvae. Each black dot in the photo is the head of one. Since the area shown is about 2 cm across, there were thousands of them on one fungus. The yellow material is the spore-bearing tubes (underside) of the fungus.
