The Daily Bucket is a repository of our observations of the (natural) world around us. Eagles or midges, flowers or fungus, mist or tornado: this is the place to record what you see where you are. Please chip in with your observations of backyard birds, strange mold outbreaks, the last, first, or middle flowers of the season. In addition to what you saw please let us know where you are located, as close as makes you comfortable.
Today's bucket is brought to you by the fungus on the really tall stump in my front yard.
Tallahassee Florida.
Our 'front' yard is wooded. Most of the trees are Loblolly Pine or Sweetgum with some live oaks on the periphery. Shortly after moving in we noticed that the top of one of the sweetgums was dead. It was raining branches into the yard on a regular basic so we had a neighbor, conveniently also an arborist, cut it down. We left about fifteen feet of the trunk standing, to serve as a 'woodpecker snag'.
For some time the snag was a bit of a nuisance because it kept putting out shoots which had to be pruned. Now it seems to be safely dead. Shelf fungi started appearing on the trunk about a year ago and numerous toadstools sprout from the ground adjacent to it.
Fungus on trunk. Lake Jackson is the pale smudge in the background.
Saturday I noticed several new, soft white fungi had appeared on the trunk. Walking by the trunk I noticed little things crawling all over the bark.
I took a ton of pictures of these guys on the surface of the trunk. Particularly on the bark, they just wouldn't hold still.
These guys are Pleasing Fungus Beetles (family Erotylidae) in the genus Triplax. for reference they are about a quarter of an inch (6 mm) long. Looking at Bugguide they could be one of four species. The beetles could be observed running about on the bark of the tree, over the surface of the fungi and into the gills.
Quite a few of the individuals were mating although most of them were not.
The mating beetles moved more slowly and were easier to photograph. No prurient interest in the many beetle mating photos.
I'm assuming that the 'fruiting' of this fungus attracted the beetles. The fungus has quite a strong odor to my nose and I'm sure it could be detected at a distance by this species. They were mating and then presumably laying eggs within the fungus.
I really like the effect of the light coming through the fungus. Gives the place kind of an unworldly look.
There are several beetle families that specialize in living on fungi. In addition to Pleasing Fungus Beetles there are Handsome Fungus Beetles, Minute Fungus Beetles, Minute Tree-Fungus Beetles, Fungus Weevils, Tooth-necked Fungus Beetles, Silken Fungus Beetles, Round Fungus Beetles, Hairy Fungus Beetles, Shining Fungus Beetles, and Dry Fungus Beetles. There are a number of other families which don't have fungi in the name that contain members that live in fungi such as the Rove beetles (Staphylinidae) which is the largest beetle family in North America. I did a quick search for publications on Triplax. Didn't find much except for lists of species from various parts of the world. Triplax is also mentioned on several papers that discuss the value of old and dead trees for conservation purposes. Many species of insects are dependent on tree fungus as habitat.
Other insects were attracted to the fungus as well, although in smaller numbers. However they were more inclined to hold still and pose for photographs.
The largest and most conspicuous was this parasitoid wasp. I'm not sure if they were attacking beetle eggs or perhaps insects that had entered the fungus earlier.
This is the first of three pictures of the wasp ovipositing into the fungus. The other insect is a fungus gnat (family Mycetophilidae or possibly Sciaridae)
This is another fungus-loving insect, a fungus feeding
Drosophila. The common 'fruit' flies (
Drosophila melanogaster and
D. simulans) feed on yeast (a single-celled fungus). Some native species have larvae that live inside larger fungi.
My last observation is not directly related to the fungus but was made as a result my standing next to the stump and staring at the bark. Then part of the bark moved.
After carefully making sure my eyes weren't leading me astray I managed to left the mobile bark fleck to the palm of my hand
Looking closer reveals things that look like legs and mandibles.
It took a while to flip it over as it would immediately grab onto the finger that did the flipping. But here is the underside, a bit blurry as it didn't like being inverted and wiggled vigorously.
A check of bug guide and some other sources revealed that this bizarre creature is a larval Green Lacewing (family Chrysopidae). Larvae in this family are active predators of other insects. Some of them cover their bodies with debris in the manner of a decorator crab. The characteristic sickle-shaped mandibles can be seen below along with most of the head.