An unidentified species of mushroom creeps out of a dead log (photo by Aaron Zaremsky)
Fungus Among-us
- Published: May 31, 2011
Today’s wildlife photo is a pair of mushrooms happily digesting a rotting log.
Fungi are nature’s undertakers, transforming dead organic matter into usable nutrients for other organisms.
The colorful and sometimes bizarre array of caps we see and commonly identify as mushrooms are only part of the organism. The caps grow out of a vast array of underground threads that form a structure called mycelium. Some biologists consider this mycelium to be the main structure of fungi, which makes some immense stretches of mycelium the largest organisms in the world, stretching for miles and miles.
The next time you go for a hike, you can usually spot fungi in the glen on rotting logs or anywhere else where there is dead organic matter.
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