EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Cup Fungi of the Congo

Cup Fungi, Family Pezizaceae or Sarcoscyphaceae, Ascomycota
Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Explanation:  Deep in the heart of the largest national park in central tropical Africa, life springs from rotting wood.  These are the fruiting bodies of a cup fungus, their thread-like mycelia ("roots") drawing nutrients from the decay this down log.  

We previously encountered another cup fungus in the wet coastal forests of Oregon, USA.  Like that species, this one uses its cup shapes to focus the force of raindrops to disperse its spores as rain splashes into each tiny bowl.  What an interesting adaptation!

This species might be Cookeina speciosa of Family Sarcoscyphaceae or similar.  Cup fungi such as this are used in the Congo by children of some villages to make tires of toy cars, and are tossed at each other for amusement (Kamelabo et al. 2018).  

  
And sometimes my own photos surprise me.  When I took this shot, I didn't notice the tiny orthopteran (cicada or grasshopper) on the log among the cups!

Information:
     Kamelabo, HM, HNSW Malale, CM Ndabaga, J Degreef, A De Kesel.  2018.  Uses and importance of wild fungi: traditional knowledge from the Tshopo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 14:doi: 10.1186/s13002-017-0203-6.