Cute Little Stinker

First, Mark Bower sent me this photograph of a slime mold.  He has a knack for finding beauty in slime molds but this one is rather boring until you find the spider.  Click to enlarge the image and join the search.  The answer is at the bottom of the page.

Clathrus ruber -Mike Hall

Meanwhile, I received this photograph from Mike Hall in California.  This is a fungus which mimics a spray painted wiffle ball.  Mark Bower provided me this link to the Clathrus ruber.  It is native to Turkey and Europe but has been introduced by human activity to North and South America, probably in mulch with other plants.

Devil's Stinkhorn-Phallus rubicundus-MB

This is a colorful way to introduce the subject of the stinkhorn fungi in the family Phallaceae.  The name derives from the Greek phallos which means.....well since this is a family blog let's just say most of the members are finger shaped.  Stinkhorn mushrooms come by their name honestly, as when they age they produce an odor that would gag a maggot.  The odor, typically described as like carrion or dung, is produced by the sticky mass of spores (gleba) located on the end of a finger-like stalk called the receptaculum.


Stinkhorns first emerge from the soil from a round structure referred to as an egg.  A few species are star or lattice shaped but all I have seen in Missouri are on a single stalk. 

This Lysurus periphragmoides emerged from.....

.... this "egg"  - Mark Bower

Mutinus elegans or caninus - MB

“Stinky Squid” (Pseudocolus fuciformis)-MB

Unlike most fungi whose spores drop from gills or pores, stinkhorns' spores are in the gelatenous gleba at the tip.  The foul odor attracts flies, beetles and other insects which pick up the spores on their feet and haul them off to other fertile sites.



Our Clathrus ruber has a colorful history described in Wikipedia.  This includes finding it growing on "a human skull in a tomb in a deserted church" and several poisonings when eaten in spite of the odor.  Apparently there are places in Asia and Europe where stinkhorns are considered delicacies when they are picked in the egg state and sold pickled as deviled eggs.  As my mother used to say, "Each to his own taste the woman said as she kissed her cow."

Now back to the spider test up at the top of the page.  Find the little yellow arrow below and then see the spider closeup.

And here it is.

Schoolcraft in the Ozarks

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft hiked down Bull Creek on January 6th, 1819, the first person to write a description of the Ozarks landscape.  He repeated the trip 200 years later to the day in the person of Rick Mansfield as described in this News-Leader story.  I had met him this summer at Round Spring where I was reenacting Henry for school groups and invited him down to the creek.

Here is the back story.  I first got interested in Schoolcraft from reading his journal in the late 1990s.  Then a friend of mine roped me into doing a reenactment of him for a history group.  The last ten years I have done these occasionally and then business picked up with the bicentennial of his travels and his journal that was published in 1821.  Never accused of brevity, Schoolcraft titled his book  Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansaw, from Potosi, or Mine a Burton, in Missouri Territory, in a South-West Direction, toward the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1818 and 1819. 

Around 10 years ago it dawned on me that his January 6, 1819 journal entry sounded just like our valley at Bull Mills.  (See this link to his January 6th journal entry. )  Recently this was confirmed by a study by Jack Ray (MSU Archeology) and Curtis Copeland, a local amateur historian and GIS mapper.  Above is their map of his journey that day with our property outlined in the upside down purple "L".

Bull Creek - Click to enlarge

We spent two evenings with "Rick" Schoolcraft, regaled with the adventures of his life, stories that would have made the original Henry proud.  He has hiked several hundred miles of what we can reconstruct as Schoolcraft's route, albeit many of them now paved.  Those changes are all part of the message in Journal of a Tour.  I would encourage you to read his journal which is available on line here.
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Update - February 6, 2019
Rick "Schoolcraft" celebrated his return to Potosi on February 4, 2019, 200 years to the day.  Three "Henry's" gathered to have a small round table discussion before setting off for the final walk to Moses Austin's store site for the return finale.

Three Henrys- Bob Kipfer, Rick Mansfield and Eric Fuller

Arriving at the Austin store, February 4, 2019

Hattie's Scarab

Hattie's Scarab

I received this photograph from our friend Courtney who found the insect with her 3 year old assistant Hattie. They sent it in to INaturalist and got a tentative ID of Bolbocerosoma bruneri. That would put it in the Geotrupidae family, the Earth-Boring Scarab Beetles, EBSB, (also called dung beetles). 

B. bruneri - Marci Hess cc

I would agree with the genus Bolbocerosoma but have reservations on the species. All the photographs of B. bruneri on Bugguide show a thin curved black line on the thorax immediately behind the head which is missing in the picture above, so I am going to stick to Bolbocerosoma sp which gives us 12 species to choose from in the US.  They all have in common the orange pronotum, black markings and five deep punctuate grooves on their elytra.

EBSB with its mound - Ag.Purdue.edu

EBSB have a very interesting life cycle. They burrow tunnels into the ground, some up to 9 feet deep. They may have multiple chambers at the bottom and the opening on top frequently has a pile up of dirt like a miniature prairie dog mound.  They deposit an egg at the bottom and then food above it forming a plug. This can include collected feces, decaying plant material, and fungus. The adults do not care for their young.  When grown, the grub will pupate, the adult emerges and climbs to the surface to fly off, probably relieved to be out in the fresh air.

They soon however return to the same old diet, eating decaying material and fungus and  and are often found on dung piles or compost heaps. Adults come to light which probably explains the one on Courtney's porch. Once you get past the "yuck" factor, remember that they are an earth-friendly species, similar to a vulture in recycling carbon and nitrogen from dead and decaying material into the soil. You didn't have any other plans for that dung, did you?

Life in a Walnut Husk

We were collecting walnuts to make walnut ink when I discovered life living under the husk.  It turns out that the space between the nut and the rind is a busy place.  These little wigglers might have given the normal observer a bad case of the heebie-jeebies but they only piqued my curiosity.  These are the larvae of the walnut husk fly (WHF), Rhagoletis completa.

Husk fly eggs in groups of up to 15 are deposited under the outer husk surface and hatch after five days into little white maggots. Older maggots turn yellow with black mouthparts.  The maggots feed inside the husk, gradually turning the husk mushy and black. After feeding for a month, the maggots drop to the ground and burrow into the soil where they will spend the winter as pupae.

Walnut husk fly - wsu.edu

"The adult is about 1/4 inch (6 mm) long, slightly smaller than a housefly. It has large, iridescent, greenish eyes, a tawny  brown body color and banded wings. It has a yellow spot on its back. Its conspicuous wing markings make it easy to identify. The female is larger than the male and its abdomen is more pointed." Washington State University also has  more information on WHF.

Husk fly male - Don Loarie

WHF gets no respect on the internet.  The maggots' feeding discolors the nut shells and makes the husks hard to remove. Early summer husk fly infestations also can stunt nut kernel development.  They can occasionally attack nearby apricot and peach tree fruit.  Most references are to methods of killing them and preventing the spread to commercial walnut crops.  A number of tactics are described to combat them including use of Sevin and malathion, which can affect a wide variety of innocent insects.




Damaged walnut husks laying on the ground may host other insects.  I have found other insects and tiny spiders hiding inside damaged husks and on a WOLF field trip while looking for husk fly larvae we found this tiny winged creature pictured here which I couldn't identify.

I recently found some other even more mysterious critters, but you will have to wait for them in another blog.  Speaking of tiny creatures, A Chaos of Delight has hooked me on "mesofauna" - photographs and stories of the wide variety of 0.1 mm to 2mm creatures living in soil.  It is addictive so enter at your own risk.

Tiny Mushroom

Someone asked me if I hunt and I answered "no", then stopped to think about it.  I do hunt but it is for interesting plants and insects.  Birders "hunt" birds and many mycologists hunt mushrooms, neither group intending to eat their prey.  Here is Mark Bower's description of a September "hunt."

"I had been walking in the woods for 2 1/2 hours looking for mushrooms to photograph. The woods were dry, and I had only taken one picture all morning. As I was leaving the woods, I noticed two small mushrooms growing together on a moss-covered log. I assumed that they were just the usual boring brown-capped Pluteus species which are very common, and not worth stopping for. On closer inspection, however, I noticed the scaly appearance of the cap, which would be very unusual for Pluteus.

Spore print

This prompted me to get on my knees and closely inspect it. To my surprise, the stem appeared to be streaked with purple. Multiple photographs were taken and a spore print revealed pinkish spores. With this information, and after reviewing my books, using keys, etc., I had no clue. I then put the info on the MOMS Facebook page. The genus Entoloma was suggested as a possibility.

The color of the spores is one of the distinguishing traits used to identify mushrooms. There are a lot of ways to make a spore print but the basic method is placing the underside of the cap on a surface and keeping it moist to encourage the spores to drop.  It helps to have a dark and light surface to contrast against the spores which may vary between white or pink to dark brown.  

I then posted it on Mushroom Observer, which is a website which is reviewed by mycologists, like Bugguide for Fun-guys and gals.  My boring little mushrooms were identified as Entoloma tjallingiorum, and even though I can’t pronounce the name, I’m very happy to have found it.  Half the fun is in the hunt while identifying them is like cleaning the game.  And stop asking "are they edible?"

Fuzz on the Kale

Braconid pupae from kale - REK

My editor (wife Barb) keeps me constantly entertained with her discoveries in the garden.  This time it was clusters of tiny fuzzy spots stuck on the underside of lots of our kale leaves.  The whole cluster measured only an eighth of an inch, a jumble of oblong fuzz balls.  We put the leaf fragment in a plastic box and left it on the dining table for a few days.*  

Braconid Wasps - REK

When we next checked it there were tiny 2mm black specks on the lid.  When I opened it, they immediately flew out.  The next day there were more and this time the box went in to the freezer for a few hours before opening it. These turned out to be tiny wasps.

I sent the pictures to Bugguide.net and got a rapid response from Ken Wolgemuth.  He identified them as braconid wasps (Braconidae) in the subfamily Microgastrinae.  He explained that these are "individual cocoons that were spun by the wasp larvae that were consuming the host (e.g. caterpillar) that was feeding on your kale. They then emerged from these cocoons as the adult wasps you are seeing now."

Braconid wasp - 2mm   REK

The Braconidae family of wasps numbers over 17,000 species and counting.  They are parasitic like their larger Ichneumonoidea wasp cousins, using the larvae of beetles, flies, butterflies and even aphids to feed their young.  Once they crawl out, they spin their cocoons for protection until they emerge as adult wasps.

We think of having a virus as a disease but for Braconid wasps polydnaviruses are their nannies.  The wasps carry polydnaviruses which they have coevolved with over thousands of years.  These are injected into a host caterpillar along with their eggs.  The viruses are harmless to the wasp but immediately start to disable the host's immune defenses against the foreign eggs.  The wasp eggs hatch, develop into larvae and feed inside the host until they emerge and form the pupae we found above.  The wasps soon emerge and begin the cycle again with their friendly virus still on board.**

Cabbage white - Bob Moul

These clusters were really good news.  We have lots of cabbage white butterflies (CWB),  Pieris rapae, constantly hovering around the kale.  They are the most common butterfly in North America, an unwelcome European import which arrived around 1860 and is now on every continent on the globe except Antarctica.  They are a hearty breed, the first to emerge in the spring, flying from March through November.  In addition, their reproductive success comes from the fact that they may have 7-8 hatches a year and the wide range of host plants they can raise their young on.

Cabbage white caterpillar - Wikipedia- CC

On close inspections any of you gardeners may find one of these innocent looking caterpillars.  CWB lay one egg on each available leaf of their host plant. They eat predominately plants in the mustard family, (Brassicaceae) including cabbage, broccoli, and our kale as well as dandelion, red clover, asters, and mints.  They seem especially addicted to our leafy garden plants, chewing holes in the kale leaves until they look like  sieves. 

Cabbage white pupa - Bob Moul

The pupae of the cabbage whites are green or brown with points on the ends, resembling a dried up leaf. The last batch of caterpillars hibernate over the winter as chrysalids and hatch into adult butterflies in the spring ready to start the cycle again.  We have learned to embrace these little fuzzy spots on the kale leaves, wishing them great reproductive success as they munch away on the innards of the invasive caterpillars.

We can almost forgive them for occasionally attacking caterpillars we raise at the Butterfly House.  For a graphic example of Brachnoidae larvae emerging from horn worms, check this Youtube video.

*  Note: I am blessed with a wife that will tolerate road kill snakes and a found blue heron skulls in her freezer.  Since she accepts them, what problem is a little plastic Gerber baby food box containing insects sitting beside the salad bowl?
**  Braconid wasps and Polydnavirus

Ghost of Bull Mills

Shed hunting is a popular non-violent winter sport in the Ozarks.  After the fall rut, a buck's need for a bragging rack is gone for the year.  Decreasing testosterone levels lead to reabsorption of the bone at the antler base and eventual shedding, leaving the antlers on the forest floor.  Soon squirrels and wood rats find them and use them for sharpening and shortening their constantly growing incisors and obtaining calcium...unless Barb finds them first.  Barb is the family shed hunter and she found this beautiful pair on January 2008.


This pair ended up on our stone fireplace, tied with leather thongs as the center of the display.  They remained there until the Spirit of the Great Buck returned 10 years later.  Last Tuesday I came into the creek house and found them on the floor with the leather thong neatly sliced in the middle.  Wood rats, aka pack rats, Neotoma floridana, are frequent guests and we hear the click of a trap several times a year so I wasn't concerned and tied them back on the wall.

Here is where it gets a little weird.  Three days later we were eating dinner at 8PM right beside the wall when they came clattering down to the floor.  We hadn't seen or heard any varmit activity and the thong appeared to be cleanly cut.  Spooky!  The next morning I rubbed Siracha jalapeno sauce on the thongs, tied the cut ends together and hung them back up.  I hoped the lip burn of capsicum would dissuade a rat.

The following night at the same time we were eating when they came crashing down again!  Again the cut thong looked clean and no scurrying mammals were in sight.  I went to bed with the image of the Spirit of the Great Buck attacking me at night with an antler.

Gnawed, scissor and knife cut.

The next morning in the cold light of day the fear passed.  Under magnification I compared the cut end of the thong with scissor and knife cuts.  The end was ragged compared to the others, obviously gnawed cleanly in half without the assistance of a ghost.  At least that is what we were telling ourselves.

I hung them again, this time with the thongs tied to copper wire which was looped over the nail.  We returned 18 hours later to find one antler back down on the floor with a chewed thong.  I tied it up again and after sitting on the porch working for an hour I returned to the house and found it cut back down again!  (You can't make stuff like this up!)

This time I put up a game camera on the post opposite the antlers, hoping to catch the culprit digitally.  The next morning the antlers were safe and there was a rat in a trap.  The rat had committed suicide in our rat trap rather than be filmed doing its dastardly deed again.  The antlers have now remained in place after three weeks.

Case closed (we think), but if we don't make the next meeting, who ya gonna call?  Ghost Busters!
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And for a pleasant bedtime read to take your mind off that scary tale I would highly recommend this entertaining description of the interaction of termites farming fungus, or is it the fungus that farms the termites?