Festival of Lessons and Carols

I spent an enjoyable morning dabbling in the stinking filth which always accumulates under the bird feeders in the garden at this time of year. (Goldfinches are such messy eaters.) This rich organic mixture of seed and guano can only mean one thing - Pin Moulds! 

Here's the science bit:
Zygomycete Mucorales grow on decaying organic matter such as spoiled food or excrement. These fascinating organisms have a range of interesting sensory responses - negatively geotropic, negatively phototropic, and touch-avoidance which allows them to grow away from neighbouring objects. Phycomyces species have colourful sporangia up to 10cm tall and have been called "the most intelligent of fungi". This grey fuzzy mass was growing on the spilled seed/guano under a bird feeder. Sporangiophores ~5 cm long, hyaline near sporangia, unbranched, sporangia yellow then black. Spores elliptical/oblong ~25µm long. Based on the key to species (Benjamin & Hesseltine (1959) Studies on the genus Phycomyces. Mycologia, 51(6), 751-771):

1 Sporangiospores oval to elliptical -> 2
- Sporangiospores globose -> P. microsporus
2 Sporangiospores averaging 15-30 µm in length -> P. nitens *
- Sporangiospores averaging 8-12 µm in length -> P. blakesleeanus

So if you, like me, detest the commercialisation of Christmas, please stand now and join with me in song:

Hark! The herald angels sing
Any excuse to show off bling
Magi may have seen a comet 
Flashing lights cause me to vomit
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Inflation outstrips your pay rise
With the angelic host proclaim
No, we won't get fooled again
I scorn your ostentatious wealth
Dabbling in the stinking filth.

Merry Christmas everyone. Ho ho ho.


Pin Mould, Phycomyces nitens. 
Sony ILCE-6000
Canon MP-E 65mm F2.8 G SSM
f8 1/100 ISO 100 
3X, 10 images, Zerene PMax