Most of the time I search for the mushrooms that end up in these Friday posts. I drive around. I walk across the meadows and through the woods. But this time, things went in a different way.
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Mushrooms came to me.
I walked out of the house, locked the door ready to enter the car, and drive away when I saw four mushrooms just a meter or two from the place in which my car was parked.
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These are the shaggy parasols (Chlorophyllum rhacodes) and the post is my contribution to FungiFriday by @ewkaw
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The day was cloudy, warm, and humid, so there was an abundance of flies in and outside the house. Some of them were exploring the mushrooms.
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Here you can see both sides of the cap. To get the photograph on the right, I had to pick and ruin one of those four fruiting bodies.
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At this point, only three Chlorophyllum rhacodes remained, and I thought that this will be a very short post that would end more or less here, but ...
... but, while holding the cap I picked before, it came to my mind that I could break it into smaller pieces to see if I can find some interesting macro stuff hidden in between the gills and in the soft spongy tissue above them.
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It was a good decision.
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These are springtails.
I can't tell you the name of the species ...
... but the genus is definitively Ceratophysella.
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The family is Hypogastruridae.
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The white surface of the gills and the spongy meat of the cap were a great background for photographing these minuscule creatures.
Springtails are hexapods closely related to insects. They share many traits with insects, like the three pairs of legs, but there is enough difference about springtails to make them their own class. The class Collembola.
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I found plenty of them on this occasion ...
... and I had plenty of fun following them through the macro lens.
While I was photographing the springtails ...
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... the flies were also there.
Musca domestic, the very common houseflies from the Muscidae family aren+t particularly big flies ...
... but when compared with the springtails ...
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... they look like giants. Here you can take a good look at the difference in size. The fly and the springtail are near each other.
I followed the fly for at least half an hour or so ...
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... and I took plenty of photographs ...
... but now ...
... is time to get a break from these annoying flies that were buzzing around my head and crawling around my nose and eyes, with this macro look at one of those three mushrooms that were still standing.
I saw some shiny slime on one of the shaggy caps. A slug or a snail probably passed there at night or early in the morning.
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Wikipedia states that this species, the Musca domestica: Is believed to have evolved in the Cenozoic Era, possibly in the Middle East, and has later spread all over the world as a commensal of humans.
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Females lay batches of about a hundred eggs on decaying organic matter such as food waste, carrion, or feces.
At one point, while I was photographing the fly, a small ladybug passed through the scene. This is the Chilocorus bipustulatus, a beetle from the Coccinellidae family.
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Adult houseflies normally live for two to four weeks but can hibernate during the winter which can prolong their adult existence for months.
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In their adult life, these flies feed on a variety of liquid or semi-liquid substances, as well as solid materials which have been softened by their saliva.
And that's it. The post ended up being more about insects than mushrooms, but since everything was happening around the shaggy parasols, it can fit the Fungi Friday, I think.
The following links will take you to the sites with more information about the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_parasol
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ceratophysella&sxsrf=ALiCzsZQknvsKx1w-T-tzUJgZ41P_WVpHw:1667591679925&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdidmNp5X7AhXH_7sIHWFIBugQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1669&bih=648&dpr=1
https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/springtails
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housefly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilocorus_bipustulatus
THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.
Imagine being a tiny springtail nymph where you get to live on something that is entirely food.
Maybe there is some religion that offers that vision of a happy afterlife. 😂 Only the most righteous will live like springtails, inside the delicious things they always liked to eat. The others will share the housing and food with maggots in the housefly maggot paradise that looks like hell to most of us.
Wow - loved this post, and the story you told along the way about the insects and flys - fantastic !
And we also had the mushrooms come to us today - I found this lot in the garden !
They look like wine caps to me.
Thanks. 🙂Glad you like this report from my yard. And glad that you too have some cool fungi in your garden. In my garden, interesting mushrooms appear rarely.
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Amazing!! I love this minuscule session a lot.
an the very fact, too!
...and a !PIZZA
Seems they are edible when cooked or did the bugs put you off?
I left mushrooms to the bugs this time. 😃 I had some other stuff in the fridge.
The scientific name for shaggy parasol is Lepiota rhacodes, they are relatives to Macrolepiota procera = top edible shrooms. These are edible too but maybe not as great as Macrolepiota procera 😜
!PIZZA
But would they be good on !PIZZA 😁?
I cant say anything about the actual taste.
Maybe that is the reason dear Borjan left them to the worms and minuscule. Ad for the other (relative) mushroom I mentioned - that would be delicious on !PIZZA, cause, you know, it tastes like meat. one of my friends state it is indistinguishable from meat, when already cooked. Sadly, I never could find it (Macrolepiota procera) - it occures a bit more to the south, than my area. 😜
This is a cool and unique mushroom, you don't have to look far to find this mushroom because it is already growing in front of your house.
And I see these flies are also very fond of the mushrooms that you show me.
Does this mushroom smell?
It doesn't have a strong smell. You can feel it only if you break the mushroom and put the piece very close to the nose.
Do you forage edibles? Or just take shots of everything looking nice?
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Not so much recently. I'm more focused on searching for mushrooms to photograph and I spend plenty of time photographing them, so I don't find many edibles and usually leave them to others who will pass that way. Or to various larvae and springtails. I used to forage and eat edibles before. Four to ten years ago.
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Hello dear friend @borjan good day
What a pleasant surprise, you have received a visit from four mushrooms in your own home, that's great
Never heard of springtails, I appreciate you letting us know
Beautiful shots, thank you very much for sharing.
enjoy the weekend
Hi @borjan; the images of those little insects are great; there is so much we don't enjoy around us because of how microscopic they are; thanks for sharing that tiny world you have access to through your lens.
Thank you. 🙂 Glad you like the post.
I love how you have the macro photography really mastered!!
I hope i was more conscious to life as well, even tiny creatures are thriving👍👍 please post more like this🤗🤗
🙂
Those are wonderful mushrooms photography. You have captured some amazing fungi
Beautifully illustrated, the process of eating a mushroom by flies)
And we have a different type of this beautiful mushroom.
It can be seen from the mushrooms that you show, indeed he is very wild to grow
As always, you always do your best sir, beautiful shots
Thanks. 🙂 Glad you like the post.
With pleasure, sir,
Tha is for sharing, mush rooms are great an nutritiou
your camera is very clear and bright, the way you take portraits is also quite good
Great pics bro🤩
Actually I hate flies😅, and having 4 dogs and a neighborhood filled with other dogs isn't really helpful.
In my spare time I do go fly hunting though using a cut rubber band. It is really calming 😌
I gifted $PIZZA slices here:
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