Parasitic Pink Pom Poms

 

On a recent outing Arthropods were very hard to find, but while searching I spotted some pink dots on a lichen-covered twig. It was one of those occasions when I knew exactly what it was, the lichenicolous fungus (a fungus which is a parasite on lichens) Illosporiopsis christiansenii. You might think day-glo pink fungi would be hard to overlook, but sizeism kicks in and they are usually overlooked because of their small size. I've been looking for this species and while it's not rare I've not seen it before. There are a couple of species it could be confused with so to confirm I checked the characteristic coiled spores under the microscope.