Favoritos de origamilevi

All photos taken from outside the restricted area.

I believe all photos show the same Spiny Softshell Turtle and most photos also include a Map Turtle. They changed sunning rocks during the time I watched. In photo #3 just the head of the Map Turtle shows above the water at the upper right.

Dr. Priscila Chaverri and her teaching assistant, Efraín Escudero-Leyva of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico, were the course’s resident ascomycetologists. As this initially resembled one of the green Hypocrea/Trichoderma spp., I passed it off to them, thinking light work would be made of the ID process. After some microscopy and reference checking, Efraín returns with the name Dactylospora, a (mostly) lichenicolous genus in the Lecanorales.

This is one of the most beautiful fungi I have ever seen, and I greatly look forward to discovering the rest of its name.

UPDATE 8/28/16: Believed to be a member of the genus Abrothallus by multiple members of the “Ascomycetes of the World” Facebook group. Name updated accordingly.

Substrate: unk. foliose lichen (Observation 249900)

Habitat: Costa Rican Páramo

Ecoregion: Talamanca Montane Forests (NA0167)

Collector(s): D. Newman

Collection #: n/a

Collected for the 2016 Organization for Tropical Studies “Fungi and Fungus-Like Organisms” Course

Found on dead Ulmus bark.

This hyphomycetes can be recognized as a Morrisographium by the thin dark smooth synnema produce pale conidia on the top. Conicomyces species are similar but produce conidia with long appendage.

Synnemata scattered on outer bark of Ulmus sp. reaching about 1 mm in height. Conidiophore not examined, and usually hard to observed because they are surrounded by sterile hairs.

Conidia fusiform, somewhat sigmoid with both ends bent on the opposite side. The conidia are hyaline, multiseptate with usually 11 septa, and measure (50)65-80 x (2.5)3-4(4.5).

This species should be compared with M. ulmi which is macroscopically virtually identical and grow on the same habitat. However the conidia of M. ulmi are shorter, with no more than 9 septa and only have one end of the conidia bent

to compare here is a typical M. ulmi : https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/65053383