Mystery (to me) wood

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

leonardturner
Posts: 713
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:40 am
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

Mystery (to me) wood

Post by leonardturner »

I've been engaged for a few weeks in a highly entertaining project involving moist cultures of various matter, including some rotting wood from various sources. Here's my puzzle: on multiple occasions there have developed excrescences on the wood surface reminiscent of a child's sand-drip castles at the beach, or of the edifices, the Tufa towers, at Mono Lake. Some are more elaborate than what is shown, but they are quite common. They are shown here at three levels of magnification, done with three different lenses. All images cropped a bit, to an identical extent. There is little apparent biological activity--the rare worm, a mild proliferation of tiny beetles, but not termite activity.

Image
2.5X

Image
4X

Image
10X

At 10X, I still don't see much besides bits of wood. Any thoughts?

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Leonard

Troels
Posts: 600
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2016 11:06 am
Location: Denmark, Engesvang
Contact:

Post by Troels »

From a biological point of view the most logical guess would be: excrements from a wood eating animal (beetle larva or wood wasp larva?). Wood is a rather difficult matter to digest, so each step often just adds a little to the total decomposition.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
Visit my Flickr albums

leonardturner
Posts: 713
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:40 am
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

Post by leonardturner »

Troels, that would be my guess too. But I'm hoping that one of our clan will see this and point us toward some specific "architect" of these structures.

Thanks,

Leonard

Pitufo
Posts: 260
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2015 4:32 am
Location: United Kingdom

Post by Pitufo »

Yep, insect frass.

You'll find them everywhere on rotting wood if you look closely for them.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic