Sometimes I don't have to go far in search of material that fits this community.
Sometimes the mushrooms are waiting in my yard, within a spitting distance from the kitchen window.
Today is definitely too cold for the stuff that you'll see in this post, but eighteen days ago, when these photographs were taken ...
... the weather was still warm enough and humid ...
... the leaves were still falling from the pomegranate tree ...
... and quite a few small arthropods were still active on my lawn.
These small mushrooms, the Coprinellus disseminatus, appear every year in my yard. Mostly in autumn, but sometimes and in smaller numbers, in winter, springtime, and summer as well, if the conditions are good enough.
They are commonly known as Fairy inkcaps.
Most inkcaps dissolve into a black goo at the end of their cycle, after the spores have been released ...
... but not the Coprinellus disseminatus. These fruiting bodies just wither like small flowers.
Here you can see a group of Fairy inkcaps and the brown leaf that fell from the nearby pomegranate tree. While I was photographing this scene ...
... a small insect landed on the fallen leaf. So I mounted the macro lens and took a couple of shots ...
... before the aforementioned insect took a very short flight to one of the nearest mushrooms.
When it comes to the name of the species, I can't tell you that, but this is definitively a small fly from the Mycetophilidae family. Mosquito-like flies from this family are commonly known as Fungus gnats.
Some little umbrellas from that large cluster of Coprinellus disseminatus fruiting bodies were partially eaten. After a bit of exploring and sniffing around ...
... I noticed a minuscule green dot on the top of one of those mushrooms.
When I came closer with the macro lens, I saw a small creature feeding on the cap.
Some springtails are voracious eaters of various fungi and green plants in humid habitats.
Sminthurus viridis is the name of this species.
If you enlarge this enlargeable photograph, you may notice a group of these springtails feeding on the leaf of grass and only one little green creature on the inkcap's cap.
This black little insect was also photographed on the grass around the mushrooms.
I don't know the species or family of this small Hemiptera that regularly appears on my lawn in the autumn when the days are too cold for most insects.
Sometimes these bugs can be seen even in winter if the weather is slightly warmer than usual.
Hope that one day I'll find out the name of the species because it will probably appear in quite a few more posts in the future.
While photographing these bugs ...
... I noticed some movement among the mushrooms. Something bigger was passing through. When I took a better look ...
... I saw a hairy caterpillar that just came out of one cluster of mushrooms, and now was directed towards another one nearby. In this enlargeable photograph, you can see a minuscule springtail in the foreground. The caterpillar looks like a giant when compared to the minuscule Sminthurus viridis.
At one point ...
... when the caterpillar was passing through another dense cluster of inkcaps ...
... one of the springtails that were feeding on mushrooms, accidentally jumped right on the hairy larva.
The scene looked great through the macro lens.
After the initial surprise and slight disorientation ...
... the springtail found its way out of the strange forest made of bristles ...
... and climbed on one of the many mushrooms.
The caterpillar continued its walk across the lawn.
I saw many springtails on that occasion.
Their size varied considerably ...
... but the shape was always the same.
These are all Sminthurus viridis springtails.
Here you can see the springtail on the bridge ...
... formed by a dry part of grass curved above the mushrooms.
The springtail in this photograph ...
... is feeding on the juicy leaf of some plant among the inkcaps.
On another leaf not far from there, I photographed this minuscule rove beetle.
I was able to take two shots before the insect flew away. I don't know the name of the species.
Here you can see a small, slightly desiccated Coprinellus disseminatus surrounded by fallen leaves.
Here you can see yet another springtail on mushrooms. This scene caught my attention ...
... because of the presence of some small dandelion-like seed. The arrangement looked pretty photogenic.
Some relatively big fly was resting nearby, on the leaf fallen from the pomegranate tree. Another springtail was feeding on the leaf of grass near the legs of the fly.
And now ...
... with the last few Fairy inkcap portraits, is time to end this mushroom report from my yard. As always here on HIVE, the photographs are my work.
