After more than twenty-years of searching Daintree Rainforest for all manner of cryptic life forms, we have at last photographic evidence of this rare Red Boobook (Ninox boobook lurida). The Southern Boobook (Ninox boobook) is also known as Mopoke, Morepork, Spotted Owl or Marbled Owl. This Red Boobook is a smaller bird and a subspecies that is darker in [...]
At last, warmer weather and rain has enlivened the Daintree Rainforest, ending a long, cold winter. With below average rainfall, the rich and vibrant presence of fungi has been lessened, but today the Yellow Many-headed Slime Mould (Physarum polycephalum) appeared on a log in a shady section of the rainforest. Not unlike bureaucracies, the slime [...]
This is Oberonia titania. Oberonia orchids are fairy orchids, small and petite. Species titania is the King of the fairy orchids. Thought extinct in about 1960, we are pleased to confirm that it is alive and continuing to exhibit its delicate beauty in the Daintree Rainforest. We first discovered this minute fairy orchid about a [...]
One of the most frequently asked questions on our tour is, “How is climate change affecting the Daintree Rainforest?”. The long term answer is easy. When Australia broke away from the already fragmenting supercontinent of Gondwana, about 50-million years ago, leaving Antarctica and drifting northward for about 35-million years in what is referred to as splendid isolation, no other [...]
Cordyceps is a genus of sac fungi known as ascomycete fungi that includes about 400 species. All Cordyceps species are mainly parasitic on insects and other arthropods; a few are parasitic on other fungi. The generic name Cordyceps is derived from the Greek word kordyle, meaning "club", and the Latin stem -ceps, meaning "head". Several [...]
Spectacular orange floral fungus enhances the beauty of the rainforest, with its bright colour attracting the appropriate insects to traffic spores in a general absence of wind. We are familiar with the White Jelly Fungus or Silver Ear (Tremella fuciformis), but this magnificent variation is delightfully new to us. Tremella mesenterica appears to be the [...]
