#alex hyde

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Tailless whip scorpion (Amblypygi) still pale from recently shedding its skin, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.

Photographer: Alex Hyde

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Fallen Star

Nestled amidst leaf litter and decaying stumps on forest floors around the world, the collared earthstar (Geastrum triplex) can be hard to spot—that is, until the mushroom’s bulbous core wheezes a fleeting puff of spores. As a member of a group of fungi called Gasteromycetes, or “stomach fungi,” the collared earthstar begins its life cycle as a hardened bulb of just a few centimeters, anchored underground by a network of tiny fungal threads, called mycelia. In the late summer and early fall, earthstars reach maturity and “bloom” into their characteristic, flower-like shape as the thicker outer tissue (the exoperidium) splits into an array of some four to eight points, much like a rind falling off an orange. Once fully mature, the average earthstar resembles a drab clementine perched atop a star-shaped saucer.

Photo: Alex Hyde

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Longhorn Beetle

Photograph by Alex Hyde

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Cranaid harvestman (Cranaidae) close up portrait, rear view, Kapari cloud forest, Choco, Pacific slope, Ecuador.

Alex Hyde

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“Safety in numbers”

by Alex Hyde (GB)

European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards

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The fungus is real: In the new television show The Last of Us, a warming planet births a fungus that turns humans into parasite-controlled zombies. This concept isn’t entirely sci-fi, Nat Geo's Sarah Gibbens explains. Parasitic fungus already exists (like the fungi emerging from a moth, above) but it might take millions of years for it to make the leap to humans. In the meantime, there are a few hundred fungi that are already dangerous to people.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX HYDE, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY

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Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) close up of seedhead or 'clock', Nordtirol, Austrian Alps. June.

Photographer: Alex Hyde