Diario de vanessarong

Ganoderma applanatum aka the artist's fungus

The species name, Ganoderma applanatum, derives from Ganoderma, meaning possessing a shiny skin, and applanatum, meaning having a flat shape (Zabel, Morrell, 2020). Ganoderma applanatum is a white-rot fungus with a shelf-like appearance that grows typically at the bases of decaying hardwoods stumps or on hardwood logs in a fruiting structure or perennial conk (Zabel, Morrell, 2020). Some distinguishing features of Ganoderma applanatum are its creamy white underside, hymenium, that bruises brown for years when scratched, allowing them to produce artistic images, hence the common name (Zabel, Morrell, 2020). They are saprobic and parasitic meaning they survive by decomposing decaying natural material as food or consuming the tissue of living organisms as a form of nutrients (Zabel, Morrell, 2020). Ganoderma applanatum decays the lignin in the hardwood they inhabit, resulting in a white string-like decay of the wood (Zabel, Morrell, 2020).

Robert A. Zabel, Jeffrey J. Morrell, in Wood Microbiology (Second Edition), 2020

Within the variety of observed species, the one I located using OneZoom was the Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis). This insect falls under the large Animalia Kingdom, Phylum Arthropoda, and Insecta class. Further down the phylogenetic tree, they classify under the order Coleopatera, cocinedllidae family and Harmonia Genus. We then narrowed the species down to Harmonia axyridis.

With all the observations made during the lab, all species in the project had a pair of antennae on top of their heads. Although the lengths and sizes varied, each insect had antennae.

In one of the observations, the Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) possessed a trait that stood out from the other insects. It had distinct black spots on its bright back. Other insects were extremely camouflaged with their environment while this species stood out drastically.