Bioluminescence - Blog Posts
BIOLUMINESCENCE l Jordan Robins l Jervis bay, Australia
Mayshroom 24✨ Bioluminescence is so cool...
AAAAAAAAAA
OH MY GOSH ITS SO TINY
It looks like a gumdrop. I wanna smoosh it so bad but it wouldn’t recover so I won’t.
Here’s the paper that describes this species holotype!! Mycena subcyanocephala from Latin, literally “little blue-head” (don’t quote me on that, it’s been a few years since I reviewed my Latin). It’s a new species, so we don’t know much about it yet. BUT they belong to the Mycena genus, which is potentially one of the coolest fungi clades around!! It’s one of the most prolific genera of fungi, and is native to nearly every continent! They’re also some of the smallest mushrooms in the world. They tend to be no bigger than a few centimeters in cap diameter, so many species have cute common names like “pixie’s parasol”!
And if you thought being a common sort of mushroom made them boring, you’d be sorely mistaken because they’re one of the genera that contains bioluminescent species!!! Of the 500 known species, around 58 glow with this absolutely ethereal, chemically-generated glow called foxfire. They do this by introducing oxygen to luciferin, a protein that produces light when this reaction occurs using the enzyme luciferase as a reaction site. Absolutely magical!! I wonder if our littol gumdrop friend is one of the 58!!
I don’t wanna bore y’all with a lecture on bioluminescence, even though it’s one of THE COOLEST things in nature (and that’s saying a lot), so have some pictures of foxfire instead <3333
(pssssssstt thanks for sharing your shroom pics with me @blithe-imperial-underling and @imperial-strategist )
You can learn more about Mycena here (sorry it’s just Wikipedia, it was kinda hard to find an overview article quickly) and you can learn more about bioluminescence in fungi here!
You are correct, @theartgremlin. I am always watching, and I found your biology lesson very interesting. My aide has a particular interest in mycology, and she was intrigued when I forwarded the information I intercepted about the microscopic predators from your planet. She shared an interesting bit of fungi with me as a result. This is one she thought I would appreciate due to its coloring resembling those of my old GAR legion.
But I should have known by the look on her face that Lieutenant Blithe had more to show me than just that one holopic. The next image she showed me was even better. Just like your microscopic worms, it was the size of this organism that was the most interesting.
The orginal post containing these extraordinary images can be found here.
The wonderful Glass Octopus. Living at depths of around 3000 ft and only being about a foot long, these strange little creatures are rarely seen by scientists.
Dee Mac released her new album today. It’s amazing. She’s amazing! What are you waiting for? Go listen to it and shower some love!
Day 30 of creatuanary
A bird, also known as Hercinia. Feathery being that inhabits the Hercynian forest, Germany. It’s said to have feathers that shine as bright as fire at nightime.
I hate color. It’s rough, course and irritating.
tbh I’ve always found it very funny that Elrond is like “there’s no point bringing Glorfindel on the quest, even though he’s a balrog-slayer. You won’t need balrog-slayers” and then thirty pages later they run into a balrog