joulukuu 28, 2023

Banana Jellyfish

Banana jellyfish, those banana shaped squishy things that you find on the beach. Not many people know what they are and if they have stingers. The answer is very interesting, the banana jellyfish is actually a conical moon snail (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/416197-Conuber-conicum) egg sack! So what happens is the snail lays eggs in a casing, which grows due to absorption of seawater. There can be thousands of baby snails in the sack, so it's best not to squash and prod them even if they're not poisonous. Photos of more egg sacks - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149395148 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148617914

So there you have it. Banana jelly fish are actually sacks of thousands conical moon snail eggs!

Julkaistu joulukuu 28, 2023 09:57 IP. käyttäjältä rangerpuffin rangerpuffin | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

joulukuu 19, 2023

Fungi tips

If you want to know more about fungi and how to take photos of them read the long bit of writing below. If you don't, have a nice day! 😀

  • When taking photos of a Common gilled mushroom you can take the top and or side of the fungus and the gills. When taking photos of the gills I find that a pocket mirror works best. You can also optionally take a spore print for further/better ids and microscopic pics to have it a a definite species level, but the other photos still work well. With some mushrooms like the Yellow stainer (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/118394-Agaricus-xanthodermus) can be identified against other Field and Button species if you bruise or scratch the surface making the area yellow (that's why it's called a yellow stainer).

You can do the same thing with Boletes and other similar shaped mushrooms.

Space and colour of gills can give you a better id of the species.

  • For polypores sometimes you can take a pic of just the top of it if you are sure of what species it is. If you are not sure you can always pull your mirror out and have a look at the pores underneath. Again microscopic photos can bring it down to a species level, but are not always needed.
    It helps to get the pores for a better id of the species, just like with the gills.

For more info on polypores - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/polypore-fungi-of-australia/journal

Thanks for reading!

These are some of the fungi taken with the mirror -

Julkaistu joulukuu 19, 2023 10:41 IP. käyttäjältä rangerpuffin rangerpuffin | 2 havaintoa | 1 kommentti | Jätä kommentti

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