I found my first occurence of Asterophora lycoperdoides! It’s a very cool looking mushroom. It is a parasite on other mushrooms, most commonly in the genus Russula. It has very weird looking gills - the only way I could describe them at the time was that they looked “fake.” There was also a weird brown poweder on top of the caps (hence the species lycoperdoides)!
The Liatris barely occurs in the state at all actually! In the county I saw it in it was limited to some floodplain grassland habitat. I’m not sure if that’s what it prefers throughout it’s range, but that’s what it liked where I saw it. It’s possible it could be hiding elsewhere in the state, but in general it doesn’t seem to get anywhere near the more populated regions of Colorado. Below is an image of it’s documented range from BONAP! As of yet the species has not been inatted in the Wyoming, Texas, or New Mexican parts of its range. Though inatters have found new county level distributions in Kansas! I hope that more people can get out in the prairie to see these awesome and beautiful plants!
I was walking home from work, using the same pedestrian path that I’ve used for years, when I saw what looked like it might be a dog off its leash. Something felt a little ‘off’ about it though, so I snapped a quick photo on my phone:
Approaching a bit closer, two more forms emerged from the side of the path and I was eventually able to identify them as Nyctereutes procyonoides (Mainland Raccoon Dog · 너구리), which I’ve been hoping to see for the past 17 years:
Interestingly, people out for their evening walk strolled right past the raccoon dogs without paying them any attention, though one man in his 20s stopped to photograph a frog that was on the path a few meters away – Rana uenoi (Korean Large Brown Frog · 큰산개구리):
Several lifers this week trying out a new camera (Upgraded from RP to R5II) hard to narrow down to a few but…
Posted this Nomophila corticalis which ended up being the first for NZ. Thanks to @christopherstephens for pointing it out. Interestingly 3 obs in three quite different parts of NZ pretty close togather. There were a few other Aus species which may have ridden the same storm?
My first Long-tailed Skipper (Urbanus proteus) which is I think the prettiest butterfly I have ever seen (pay no attention to me, I say this every time)
Very nice! I didn’t know any skippers came with long tails. And even though New York State is near the northern limit of their range, I see that there has been one observation of this species in my county.
My favorite lifer this week has been a nemesis of mine for quite a while, it’s a Hypoprepia fucosa (Painted Lichen Moth)! picture below is not my lifer but one i saw the next night and a better photo:
