Another Alwisia – A. repens

Update March 2023 DNA sequencing identified my specimens Alwisia repens (Prof. Dmitro Leontyev, personal communication 8 March 2023) 17 May 2020 A newly formed myxomycete appeared on a log I walk past every day. It was a different colour to anything I've seen previously - some fruiting bodies were white and others dark brown - …

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Moist Chamber Cultures

Culturing slime moulds in moist chambers is a tried and true method of surveying for myxomycetes. It's easy and fun to do! A magnified glass or x10 hand lens (loupe) is required when searching for the tiny fruiting bodies, but this is much easier to do with a microscope with x20 to x 40 magnification. …

Badhamia utricularis 2020

Badhamia utricularis is a wonderful slime mould to observe because its plasmodium feeds on a variety of fungal species on the surface of the substrate. (In contrast, the activity of most slime mould species usually occurs well out of sight, either in the interior of logs or stumps, or in the soil.) It wasn't until …

Pomaderris apetala – the 2019 myxo ‘hotspot’

Every year after winter rain has saturated small and large logs in the eucalypt forest, I search for the year's 'hotspot' where several species appear in close proximity on the same substrate. In 2018 the most productive log was a Bedfordia salicina, a small endemic understorey tree in the Asteraceae family. Pomaderris apetala (Rhamnaceae), another …

Iridescence

Iridescence is a widespread phenomenon in the natural world. It is common in invertebrates including in the eyes, wings and other parts of insects such as flies, wasps, bees, beetles, butterflies and bugs; the setae and other parts of crustaceans; in squid, octopus and cuttlefish; and in arachnids, especially the jumping spiders. Iridescence is also …