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.
2.5X
4X
10X
At 10X, I still don't see much besides bits of wood. Any thoughts?
Thanks for looking and commenting.
Leonard
Mystery (to me) wood
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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.
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