Have you ever encountered something that was so bizarre that you couldn’t even begin to classify it? Maybe you weren’t even sure if it was something living or not. I’ve had a few (and this post is in part a shameless plug to get some eyes on these observations that might have a better idea than I do. They’ve gone a few years without any guesses now). For example these two separate observations of what I jokingly refer to as ‘alien eggs’. I made my best guesses for each at a broad-level ID, but I’m not confident that even that very general ID is correct:
This one kind of reminds me of what inky caps look like after they deliquesce (absolutely not convinced that’s what it is, though). That is a bizarre one, too.
I think this might be from Family Xylariaceae but it took a bit of digging and I’m still not sure if I’m right. Looks like a collection of blackberries growing out of a fallen log.
I probably have plenty of old stuff that I can’t remember but I recently came across this thing which I first though was a spider, though I would guess is some sort of swallowtail caterpillar:
What I find intriguing are the “ beaded strands” to the left and right of the “ large bead” in the first photo. Strange.
