Topic: Mysteries of nature

[idolminds]

Nature is neat. My mom and I went for a hike out in the local forest preserve. We're frog monitors so we have a special paper we put in the windshield of the car and we can be in the park after dark. So we went for a hike and monitored some frogs.

Just as we were leaving I saw some glowing in the trees just off the trail. The lightning bugs are out and I thought it was just a couple of them glowing at once. Except it was too large to be a couple lightning bugs, plus it was a constant glow. We walk over and we found this.



This is right out of the camera with just some cropping. 15 second exposure, so its really a dim light source. A small tree (4-5in diameter) had fallen because the base was rotted. Where it had split this glowing fungus was growing. In the light it looks just like regular rotting wood.

[Quemaqua]

I have decided that you live in the coolest place ever.  I get really, really sick of living smack in the city a lot of the time.  Mostly it's just depressing.  Seeing something like that up close would make me feel a hell of a lot better about life.  Awesome stuff!  Thanks for sharing.

[Ghandi]

Cool stuff.

I used to go caving all the time last year, and in this fairly large cave there was a big river running through it. Back near the end (about 2 hours or more into the cave) you could find all sorts of cool creatures in the river. All of them were albino, because the cave is pitch black, and all of them were completely blind. There were salamanders, little fish, and all sorts of other things. If you ever get the chance to go caving, try it out, it's a surreal experience.

Dunno why that post reminded me of that. Cool pic.