3:00 snapshot #937, plus below-bark tracking

[urbpan]

The space between the bark and the wood of a tree--especially a dead tree--provides habitat for many creatures. Here you can see two kinds of fungus mycelium. The white stuff is pretty typical-looking mycelium, that you could find in wood chip mulch, or under a log that's on dirt. The darker stuff is "rhizomorph mycelium" (root-shaped), a form that some mycelium takes when it leaves the safety of the soil or wood tissue. I don't know for sure what fungus these rhizomorphs are, but they could be from one of the honey mushroom species. People more interested in the health of trees than the natural history of fungus organisms call honey mushroom fungus "Shoestring root rot." Honey mushroom fungi parasitize the living roots of trees.


On another tree, under the bark, I found these patterns etched in the wood. You'll probably see more pictures like this from me in the next few months, because I just got Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species, a pretty amazing new field guide. This guide identified these markings as coming from some kind of longhorn beetle--they aren't distinctive enough to narrow it down more than that.

Comments

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I love the fact that there is so much acitivity and life going on all around all the time and that we sometimes can only see it in the tracks they leave behind.

I love that there is a field guide for this!

[harebell.livejournal.com]

I need that book!