Landscape & Wildlife Photography
Mysterious Hair Ice, Exmoor
I was lucky enough to find some of this recently..
BBC Earth's website say this: 'Scientists have now discovered exactly what gives "hair ice" its strange shape. It's caused by a fungus called Exidiopsis effusa.
Mysterious "hair ice" forms into hairy clouds that look like candy floss, and we now have an idea why.. In some forests on humid winter nights, peculiar ice crystals form on rotting wood.
The ice looks like bursts of hairy cloud, and sometimes a bit like candy floss. These hair-like wisps appear at night and melt when the sun comes up'.
So it seems it only appears on certain dead wood species, under certain atmospheric conditions, in the presence of the above named fungus! If there had been more frost around it would have blended in and I wouldn't have noticed it. (Just a mobile phone macro).
Mysterious Hair Ice, Exmoor
I was lucky enough to find some of this recently..
BBC Earth's website say this: 'Scientists have now discovered exactly what gives "hair ice" its strange shape. It's caused by a fungus called Exidiopsis effusa.
Mysterious "hair ice" forms into hairy clouds that look like candy floss, and we now have an idea why.. In some forests on humid winter nights, peculiar ice crystals form on rotting wood.
The ice looks like bursts of hairy cloud, and sometimes a bit like candy floss. These hair-like wisps appear at night and melt when the sun comes up'.
So it seems it only appears on certain dead wood species, under certain atmospheric conditions, in the presence of the above named fungus! If there had been more frost around it would have blended in and I wouldn't have noticed it. (Just a mobile phone macro).