It was a windless day and I only got sprinkled on once. There were several cool finds today.
This was the first find this morning! They were huge!
The color was an awesome pumpkin color!
It has gills.
I cut off a small piece to bring home to look at closer. This led me to read about gills or as the technical term calls them lamellulae. These are different than just plain gills. They are short gills. Notice next to the edge on the left that there are shorter gills; thus short gills 🙂
The new book I told you about yesterday said this particular species should turn greenish when a chemical (KOH) is applied. It did and the spore size matched to the book’s description so it is Southern Jack O’Lantern (Omphalotus subilludens)! It is so funny because I mentioned this to Jim this morning how much it resembled a pumpkin color.
Colorado potato beetle larva on nightshade! The bane of gardeners but it does make a pretty beetle.
Same species of beetle but an earlier instar. The hairs from the nightshade makes it look like it is sparkling. These types of hairs are called stellate which means star-like.
I found this delightful slug on the sidewalk this morning!
Here you can see the slime trailing the rear end.
Close up of its head! And you can see more slime underneath. the slime helps it glide forwards or stick to surface as needed.
My FOS Meadow Pink! Jeanne beat me too it yesterday at her house.
Finally the Humpbacked orbweaver (Eustala anastera)! It is a characteristic of this female spider. It was chowing down breakfast.
Lovely photos!
Thank you!❤️
That slug slime is amazing!!