A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca
Rock-posy or rockbright lichen is a foliose lichen, with a pale green-grey thallus. Thallus is loosely attached to the substrate, each leaf has only one point of ancrage; and the entire thallus is 10 to 15 cm in diameter, and forming a lump. The apothecia are large, and often irregular in shape, orange discs, with a contrasting rim of the same colour as thallus - here a mass of apothecia are totally covering the lump of thallus.
Seen growing on bare rocks, in a midst of other lichens, a multitude of them. Seen on slopes of one of the lower peaks of Caucasus, at some 2200 - 2300 m of altitude, and in an adjacent valley, laying at some 1900m. The valley and these slopes are regularly beaten by harsh winds, and are intermittently covered by coniferous groves, thorny shrub groves, mountain grasslands and barren rocks.
The rocks in this place were really rich in lichens - I'm only attacking the collection of shots, and have already counted (but not yet identified) over 20 differents ones... and, not being good with fungi in general, I'm really struggling with the identification; but I find it a great learning exercise...
Spotted on Apr 20, 2019
Submitted on May 6, 2019
6 Comments
Congratulations! Your spotting won second place in our 2019 Best Wildlife Photo Contest - Fungi Category!
https://www.facebook.com/projectnoah/pho...
Hi Zlatan. I can identify with your struggles to identify your shots. I also have dozens of different fungi and lichens and am unable to find hardly anything on those in this region (Amazon). This is a great find. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on the nomination for Best Wildlife Foto-Fungi.
My pleasure. All wonderful spottings, and many things I don't get to see living at the far end of the world. I'm looking forward to your owl photos too over the next few weeks/months.
ahahaha; Yeah, true - just found out about the STD on Facebook for this one. Thanks all for the support.
And you got spotting of the day too! Congratulations. Great photos and notes, and you are not alone with the ID struggles. They have been the cause of much frustration and many headaches!
Your spotting has been nominated for the Spotting of the Week. The winner will be chosen by the Project Noah Rangers based on a combination of factors including: uniqueness of the shot, status of the organism (for example, rare or endangered), quality of the information provided in the habitat and description sections. There is a subjective element, of course; the spotting with the highest number of Ranger votes is chosen. Congratulations on being nominated!