GNATS

While photographing this Suillia fuscicornis fly ...

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... on a calm, relatively warm afternoon in the first half of November ... another small, elegant insect entered the frame ...

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... it looked like some kind of mosquito at first sight ... or like some small wasp at the second one ... here you can take a good look at it ... it's in the center of focus on this photograph, while the much bigger fly is blurred in the background.
Some hours later, at home, I learned that this is the fungus gnat, one of quite a few similar looking species of small, elongated flies from the
Sciaridae family. I took these shots ...

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... on the cap of the Amanita ovoidea mushroom partially covered with a lush growth of some mold fungus.

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This fungal structure looked pretty cool when seen through the macro lens ... and also here, on this intricate mold tapestry ...

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... I noticed this, even smaller ... really minuscule orange gnat ...

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It looks like he's feeding on fungus ... but I'm not completely sure if that's what's going on here.

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The daisies were in bloom all around the mushrooms ...

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... and there, among the flowers ... I photographed this minuscule fruit fly ...

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... and this, also very small, bug nymph with long antennae.

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It was a long day, I photographed many mushrooms ... big, small, and everything in between ...

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... so this short Gnat vignette can be seen as a teaser, or an introduction for a much longer Fungi Friday post that will appear on Friday the 18.12.2020 ... when I'm finished with the selecting & editing work, there is a big pile of about 500 photographs that has to be trimmed to about 100 - 150 for the post.

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