Field of Science

Name the Bug #56

Anyone recognise this one?


Attribution to follow.

Update: Identity available here. Photo from here.

5 comments:

  1. To answer your question: no. But I reason that it is seems to have veins and therefore is a tracheophyte and also clearly has spores, so is not a seed plant. So its a fern or fern ally. Googling around for ferns that bear their sporangia at the tips of their pinnules, I found Davallia, a commonly grown house plant. Of those D. fejeensis seems to be closest.A native of Fiji and Australia apparently.

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  2. It looks like a Hymenophyllum. The cup-shaped indusia are really distinct. I am interested to see if my guess is right. It would really be good to know that some of the info from my OTS course on ferns actually stuck.

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  3. With clues from Adam, Jessica and Google I'm leaning Davalia canariensis with those sori born in apical submarginal pockets.

    Now perhaps some thinking to do.

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  4. Neil had the right species (did he find the photo source, I wonder?) but I think I have to give Adam the three-pointer. Two points to Neil, one to Jessica. Which is all a bit irrelevant, because that carries both Neil and Adam above the ten-point mark, in a Name the Bug tie. So do I give the prize to Adam (highest total on twelve points), give the prize to Neil (because Adam's won before), or devise some form of tie-breaker?

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  5. Jessica: Hymenophyllaceae are distinguishable from other ferns by their super-thin fronds, only one or two cells thick. Not a bad go with the sorus shape, but the frond in this photo is too thick for Hymenophyllum.

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