Transparent fungi, mold or puke, any ideas?

[Alantoo]

View attachment 48049View attachment 48050View attachment 48052View attachment 48053

I found these lumps of jelly in the paddock and wondered if anyone can identify them.

Presumably fungi or mold, though as they were just beside the sicked-up skeletal remains of a toad I thought they were puke at first. Then I noticed that some were under the plant cover so they seem to have come up from the ground rather than down.

I have sent the images off to a fungi friend for identification but wondered if anyone had seen it before. A search on here showed up the dog vomit slime mold version but that was yellow not transparent.

Alan

 

[JockStalk]

Have seen the same before and equally baffled. Doesnt look like slime mold or eggs.

Any deer in your patch with a heavy cold?

 

[Alantoo]

Have seen the same before and equally baffled. Doesnt look like slime mold or eggs.

Any deer in your patch with a heavy cold?

Roe snot? Funnily enough it is within inches of the spot that I dropped a four pointer earlier in the year....

But it does look like it is coming upwards, if you zoom in to the last image you can see that the dew is still on the grass above it.

Alan

 

[JockStalk]

Did you bury the gralloch there? Just wondering if its bacterial.

 

[Paul 600]

Its a jelly fungus possibly Tremella fuciformis with Ophiostoma epigloeum.

 

[Alantoo]

Did you bury the gralloch there? Just wondering if its bacterial.

No I dragged the carcass out of the hay crop and gralloched it on the short grass of the yard, gralloch disposed of elsewhere. There would have only been a spatter of blood and bits left on the spot.

Alan

 

[Alantoo]

Its a jelly fungus possibly Tremella fuciformis with Ophiostoma epigloeum.

Well done, thank you. I did a search on those and although most of the images had more distinct ribbon like forms there were some which looked almost identical to my shapeless blobs of silicone sealant!

The paddock was very wet this morning, squelchy in places even, which would be in accord with the description of the fungus swelling up and becoming gelatinous when rehydrated.

Thank you again.

Alan

 

[jubnut]

No. Its not that. Given that it is next to a Frog skeleton it should be a massive clue. This is the result of a crow, or a heron eating a frog. They regurgitate the spawn and in this case the skeleton because they can't digest it.

Also those fungi are associated with rotting wood.

 

[JockStalk]

 

[Wingy]

No. Its not that. Given that it is next to a Frog skeleton it should be a massive clue. This is the result of a crow, or a heron eating a frog. They regurgitate the spawn and in this case the skeleton because they can't digest it.

Also those fungi are associated with rotting wood.

Don't think it would be spawn at this time of year, I've seen that before and is clearly identifiable as spawn. However I've seen these jelly blobs as pictured by the op and would go along the lines of fungal. Think the toad corpse is just a coincidence
Wingy

 

[Wingy]

No. Its not that. Given that it is next to a Frog skeleton it should be a massive clue. This is the result of a crow, or a heron eating a frog. They regurgitate the spawn and in this case the skeleton because they can't digest it.

Also those fungi are associated with rotting wood.

Apologies I've just looked at all the photos and photo 3 definitely looks like spawn. The others however appear different and more fungal oh and I meant frog not toad!
Wingy

 

[jubnut]

Its all frog spawn. This is exactly the time of year you find it like this. The female frogs produce and store the protein jelly that makes the frogspawn months before spawning in February/March.

 

[Alantoo]

Its all frog spawn. This is exactly the time of year you find it like this. The female frogs produce and store the protein jelly that makes the frogspawn months before spawning in February/March.

Ah well intriguing. I just looked in to see if there had been any developments. Something my fungi friend said (who has not seen the images yet) made me wonder about the coincidental proximity of the skeleton again. My first thought this morning was that it was related to the skeleton which is why I included the photos, but there appeared too much of it relative to size of skeleton. Although the bit with the black spots in looks like it was deposited the others looked like they were coming up from below. I suppose it could have been deposited and then the dew/moisture droplets formed afterwards. If it is heron vomit it could have hypodermically injected it below the plants with its beak!

I have not seen frogs around in the garden but we have a lot of toads, and the frogspawn I remember from primary school days was clusters of defined round balls and toad spawn is in strings so I had not made the connection. You would have thought that if a crow, fox or other predator had taken the frog that the protein rich jelly would have been a nutrious delicacy for it...what a waste!

Alan

 

[Alantoo]

My fungi friend has now seen the images and just phoned to say he thinks it is spawn as well. He thinks it maybe was squirted out when the frog was being chewed rather than consumed and regurgitated which would explain its cleanliness. He also mentioned that it is hygroscopic which is why there was such a lot of it relative to the size of the skeleton...it swelled up after the event.

He also said he would be happy to be corrected if anybody comes up with better evidence!

Thank you all for considering it.

Alan

 

[.25-06]

+1 money on this one

No. Its not that. Given that it is next to a Frog skeleton it should be a massive clue. This is the result of a crow, or a heron eating a frog. They regurgitate the spawn and in this case the skeleton because they can't digest it.

Also those fungi are associated with rotting wood.