Fairy Orchid Oberonia titania
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 [...]
Climate Change in Daintree
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 [...]
Cordyceps
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 [...]
Orange Floral Fungus
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 [...]
Northern Jewelled Spider (Gasteracantha fornicata)
I recently chanced upon a curious fluorescence out the corner of my eye, beneath the movement of a small black invertebrate. Upon closer inspection, I was delighted to see the Northern Jewelled Spider (Gasteracantha fornicata), weaving its fluorescent green [...]
Evolutionary Attraction?
What evolutionary attraction would lead fungi to produce light? According to the Wet Tropics Management Authority, no one knows why they bioluminescence, but across an incredible evolutionary history, and in circumstances of such consistent windlessness, fungi appears to have adapted by mimicking the [...]
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