#dufourea

[lichenaday]

Dufourea ligulata

Strap flame lichen

This foliose lichen grows on costal rocks, artificial substrates, bone, and occasionally driftwood in seaside Australasia and southern Africa. It forms rosettes and irregular patches made up of tightly attached, radiating or undulating and overlapping branches. The upper surface varies from yellow-orange to red-orange in color, and can be lobulate or scabrid in parts. It appears to produce orange, lecanorine apothecia, as far as I can tell from pictures. Sometimes lichen descriptions are really lacking online, even when there are abundant pictures. Gotta get on that, fellow lichenologists.

images: source

info: source | source

[cnestus]

the most cartoon dad ass lookin' bee i've ever seen, a male Dufourea campanulae (Halictidae)

identifying bees, particularly ones collected in the western US where they're hyperdiverse and criminally understudied, really makes me feel like an old timey gumshoe detective. There's around 70 described species of Dufourea in the US, mostly in the west, and of course no comprehensive treatments or keys have been published, just dozens of 70-130 year old scientific monographs, mostly written by Theodore "Mr Too Many Damn Bees" Cockerell, that need to be individually looked up and compared almost line-by-line until you find one that fully matches the specimen.

here's the original description by Cockerell written in 1897 if you're curious:

[drhoz]

#2474 - Dufourea ligulata - Strap Flame Lichen 

Originally described as Physcia ligulata in 1862, transferred to Xanthoria in 1983, Jackelixia in 2009 and finally Dufourea in 2013 after researchers got a look at its genetics.

On top of a stone fence at the B&B in Hāwera - absolutely typical habitat for the species, which grows on coastal rocks.

[usgsbiml]

The Black #Dufourea.  D. maura.  A western Rockies species that sneaks up north and east above the Great Lakes.  This one landed on Isle Royale, Michigan.  Look at this bee, it is so mysterious looking.