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The Corroboree
Idiot

Perth glows in the dark: Omphalotus Olearius

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Hello my friends
I was wondering around the bush for some good old Gym friends when I found these mushrooms and I thought that their colors are similar to my favourite Gyms and they are growing on the dead wood but their shape is not like my old friends!
I thought I'll pick a couple of them and take them home to undertake some proper investigation to see what they are as I haven't seen these before.

That night around midnight I wakeup to drink a glass of water and in the dark I've seen these beauties are glowing in the dark.
WOW
They look so beautiful you wouldn't believe.
I've tried to take a photo in the dark but my mobile is not the perfect tool to catch these photos.

Note: these mushrooms are not edible and if you eat them you will get sick but if you found them, take one home for the glow in the dark experience.

More info about this mushroom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalotus_olearius

More info about bioluminescent fungi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bioluminescent_fungi

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would be neat to have a few of those in a room with a UV light and a couch hey?

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Wow, Idiot, that is cool that you found a bioluminescent 'shroom! I thought I had found some too walking around in my local bushland a couple of days ago. I went back that night with my son (it was on Tuesday night, we went during half time of the Australia v. Jordan soccer match) and we took torches. I suggested we walk there in the dark but the young fella wanted to put his torch on. When we got to the spot where there were about 8 clumps of 'shrooms each with three or four mushrooms in them, we got our torches and shone them on the cap of one specific mushroom - the thinking being that we would charge up the mushroom's luminescent properties much like we do as kids charging up a glow-in-the-dark watchface, or star stickers or any other glow in the dark thing....

when we turned the torches off we couldn't really discern that the mushroom was glowing, much to my disappointment. then we tried shining the torches at the underside of the mushroom, on the gills. again, there was no discernable glow. we tried another mushroom. same thing. we left all the mushrooms in the ground and went home and ate soup. i was a bit disappointed but you have restored my faith, my hope! good to hear you can find them in Perth and I am still determined to see one. maybe i should try again without a torch?

the ones i found that i suspected were omphalotus were quite a bit bigger/older than the specimens in your photo. i have photos and will endeavour to post when i can. Perhaps the species you found is actually omphalotus nidiformis. I only say this because in a recent Climate Watch e-newsletter I received (citizen science, yeah!), in addition to them requesting info from citizen scientists on the flowering of marri trees, you can also report your sightings of oblong turtles and Ghost Fungus (O. nidiformis, according to them), amongst other things.

here is the link to reporting your sighting of your bioluminescent fungii http://www.climatewatch.org.au/species/plants/ghost-fungus?utm_source=ClimateWatch&utm_campaign=7700df2442-CW_May_2012_WA5_17_2012&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fbbc1468e0-7700df2442-410784409

I encourage you to let them (whoever they are, exactly) know!

I renew my search. Nice one Idiot, thanks for the report.

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would be neat to have a few of those in a room with a UV light and a couch hey?

some plastic mushrooms with a pigment that fluoresces vividly in UV would be neat, dunno about the pigments in real mushrooms, i've got a feeling they don't although to some degree arthropod exoskeletons do (?) as do various other parts of various living things.

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/blblacklight.htm

bioluminescence refers to light manufactured by a chemical reaction inside an organism, rather than having a pigment which absorbs invisible UV rays causing it to vibrate and heat up then emitting a particular wavelength at a shorter wavelength visible to humans.

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We used to get luminescent mushrooms at the Midginbil camping grounds back in the days of the NNSW camping trips.
They were tops and used to provide little walking trails that helped you avoid the creek at night.
Someone got some great photos of them but cant remember who it was off the top of my head.

Edited by AndyAmine.

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here's a couple of pics of what i thought might be an omphalotus species...

post-4701-0-51674800-1371106930_thumb.jppost-4701-0-09212000-1371107410_thumb.jppost-4701-0-44469400-1371107638_thumb.jppost-4701-0-77917100-1371107700_thumb.jp

in the last photo, you can see a smaller mushroom at front right that looks more akin in colour and size to the specimens in Idiot's photos in the first post of this thread.

post-4701-0-51674800-1371106930_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-09212000-1371107410_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-44469400-1371107638_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-77917100-1371107700_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-51674800-1371106930_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-09212000-1371107410_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-44469400-1371107638_thumb.jpg

post-4701-0-77917100-1371107700_thumb.jpg

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