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Large black dog-lichen

Peltigera sp.

Photo by Mark Ridgway
Published on Project Noah
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Field Notes

Description:

Deep in the darkest rainforest across the valley we found this very large 'leaved' black lichen. The lobes on the rosette in pic 1 were 60mm wide and maybe 90mm long and I think it was a fairly young specimen. Pics 2 and 3 are closer views of what I think was an older specimen which was hanging to a total length of about 400mm and included very convoluted foliose parts (like kale).

Habitat:

Very damp and dark rainforest in national park.

Notes:

The very dark color and the size of the lobe structures seemed very appropriate for the low-light conditions !? <br>
All species of Peltigera associate with the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria Nostoc. <br>
Kingdom: Fungi <br>
Division: Ascomycota <br>
Class: Lecanoromycetes <br>
Order: Peltigerales <br>
Family: Peltigeraceae <br>

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (3)

Cool spotting, Mark. Very creepy looking. I'd love to know who names these things. Inspired by a few beers, no doubt.

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