What is this yellow fungus on my lawn?

A patron came in and described something that had appeared on their lawn overnight. At first, they’d thought a dog had been sick in their yard, but on closer inspection it seemed to be an ugly yellow fungus. The patron reported that when it rained, the mass released a smoky-looking cloud of spores. It also appeared to bleed.

We had noticed something similar growing in the mulch in front of the library a few weeks earlier. It had eventually disappeared on its own, and we’d never tried to identify it, but we knew what our patron was describing. Because we thought the yellow mass might be a fungus, we checked The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, David Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified, and Peterson’s Field Guide to Mushrooms. However, we couldn’t find what we were looking for.

Searching on Google for an image of yellow fungus led us to an article by Susan Mahr on the Wisconsin Master Gardener Program website. There were several pictures that our patron recognized as the organism growing on their law, which the website identified as the “dog vomit slime mold.” Technically, it’s not a fungus at all. While scientists used to place slime molds in Kingdom Fungi, they were moved to Kingdom Protista, which serves as a catch-all for eukaryotic organisms that are not plants, fungi, or animals.  

According the Mahr, the dog vomit slime mold begins its life as a spore. These spores develop into cells, which join up to form the slimy-looking yellowish-brown plasmodium. The plasmodium creeps across the land, consuming the bacteria and other organisms that thrive in decay. When it runs out of food or gets too dry, the plasmodium transforms into an aethelium, or a “fruiting body” – the puffy yellow mass that will release spores and begin the cycle anew.

The aethelium will continue to develop, hardening and darkening in color. It may start to liquefy in spots, which can make it appear to bleed, as our patron noticed. Once the hard crust is broken, it will release its clouds of spores. This may have been the “smoking” that our patron noticed.

Despite its unappealing name and appearance, the dog vomit slime mold is almost entirely harmless. (The spores may aggravate asthma or allergies.) It will eventually dissolve on its own after a few days, though it can also be broken up. A slime mold needs moisture, so they’re usually spotted in hot, humid weather. Watering less, or raking up damp mulch, can be another way to be rid of them.

What kind of ducks were on my pond?

“Can you tell me what kind of ducks were on my pond this morning? One was brown and the other one was darker but it had a big patch of white on its side. Both of them looked like they had white stripes on their beaks.”

We checked the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s waterbird identification guide and, while we weren’t able to precisely identify the ducks, we could narrow it down. Presumably, they were a male and female pair – the female is often drabber in color, so she was probably the brown duck.

They were not canvasbacks. While the female canvasback is brown and the male is black and rusty brown with a white body, they both have dark bills. The redhead is a possibility, but the colors don’t quite match up. Again, the female is brown and the male, like its name indicates, has a rusty red head and a black and grey body. Their bills are a lighter blue-grey, but they are black-tipped rather than white-striped. The lesser scaup also has a blue-grey black-tipped bill with a darker body and grey-white sides. The female is lighter in color but also has grey-white sides. Our patron’s birds could also be ring-necked ducks. Both the male and female ring-necked duck have white rings on their beaks. The female is brown with pale cheeks and the male is black with grey and white sides and a distinctive peaked head. All of these ducks are common across Ohio when they’re migrating.

If our patron happens to hear their ducks make sounds, they may be able to identify them that way. According to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, while the canvasback is usually quiet while it migrates, it can hoot and growl. The ring-necked duck also growls, hisses, and whistles. The redhead has a “low, nasal quack” and the male in spring makes “catlike” sounds. Finally, the scaup makes a sound that’s an onomatopoeia of its name.

EDIT: Sara from The Bridge, a Newton Falls newspaper, suggests that they may be mergansers, which are common across Ohio during their migration. 

What kind of snake is this?

A patron brought in a picture of a small snake she encountered. The snake is a tan color with dark brown splotches that seem to be outlined with black. It has no rattle, and its body tapers down to a rounded head.

Using resources such as Carl and Evelyn Ernst’s Snakes of the United States and Canada, Deb Platt’s article “Snakes of Ohio at a Glance” on TrekOhio.com, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources website, and the Ohio Public Library Information Network’s snake ID and information website, we concluded that our patron’s snake is most likely an eastern milk snake.

The eastern milk snake is found all through Ohio in all sorts of habitats. They are secretive and will often hide during the day. Mice and rats are among their preferred prey, so they can be found in and around barns. According to popular folklore, milk snakes got their name from the erroneous assumption that they hung around farms to drink milk from the cows.

The milk snake is not venomous. In fact, there are only three species of venomous snake native to Ohio: the copperhead, the massasauga rattler, and the timber rattler. They all have distinctive features that set them apart from non-venomous snakes, including triangular heads (the non-venomous snakes have rounded heads) and vertical pupils (whereas the non-venomous snakes have round pupils like people do).

Milk snakes are commonly kept as pets, though the eastern milk snake is one of the less popular subspecies. Honduran, Mexican, Pueblan, and Sinaloan milk snakes are favored for their bright red, black, and yellow bands of color. (The colors of these milk snakes mimic the bands of color on the venomous coral snake. Because they look similar, the milk snakes are often mistaken for the coral snake and left alone by predators. The eastern milk snake has more of a rattlesnake coloring, and will even shake the tip of its tail when threatened.)

For more information on snakes, Martin Gaywood’s Snakes and Patricia Pope Bartlett’s Reptiles and Amphibians for Dummies (which is about caring for reptiles and amphibians as pets) are both available at the Newton Falls Public Library.

What was the creature I saw in my garden?

“There was something flying around the flowers in my garden. Its wings were moving so fast, but it looked too small to be a hummingbird. Do you know what it was?”

Our patron brought in a picture of the little creature they saw in the garden. It looked plump and soft to the touch, with a green and red body and a white underbelly. Its wings were a blur. It appeared to have antennae and a proboscis, so we looked for it in the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders and found it in the moth section.

Our patron’s garden visitor was a hummingbird moth. It’s a member of the moth family that’s active during the day and can be seen from May to September. The hummingbird moth uses its long tongue to feed on nectar from long-necked flowers. Its wings beat so fast that it can produce a hum, still audible but softer than an actual hummingbird’s. According to the U.S. Forest Service website, the moth that our patron saw was a hummingbird clear wing, distinguishable by its red color.

What kind of moth is this?

A large moth – about three inches long – was resting on the library’s back door, and we wanted to try and identify it. Its fuzzy-looking legs and body were a rusty orange color and its grey wings were veined with the same shade of orange. Both its body and wings were patterned with ivory markings.  

One of our librarians checked the Moths of Ohio Field Guide on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources website while another looked in Butterflies and Moths: A Guide to the More Common American Species by Robert T. Mitchell and Herbert S. Zim. At the same time, we both came across the Regal Moth, also known as the Royal Walnut Moth. Its distinctive colors and markings matched our moth’s exactly.

The Regal Moth is active in Ohio during June and July. While it’s more common in the southern part of the state, it can be found wherever its food sources (hickory and walnut, primarily) are available. The adult moth actually doesn’t eat or drink at all. It only lives about a week, long enough to mate and lay eggs. The larva can grow to be about six inches long, “the size of a small hotdog,” according to the Moths of Ohio Field Guide. It’s called the Hickory Horned Devil after its favorite food and inch-long red spikes. As ferocious as it looks, though, the Hickory Horned Devil is harmless; its spikes are just for show. 

What kind of spider is this?

"I found a spider in my shed. It's got black-and-grey striped legs and a big yellow body about the size of a jellybean. It has four holes on its back, like someone poked it with a pin. Could you tell me what it is and if it's dangerous?" Fortunately, none of us at the desk that day were too terribly arachnophobic, so we were happy to help.

After looking through the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders by Lorus and Margery Milne, we realized that there are quite a few spiders with striped legs and large yellow bodies. The patron offered to bring in the spider so we could compare it to the pictures. By the time they arrived, the spider had already started spinning a web in its jar.

Putting "Ohio spider identification" into an online search engine brought up a PDF of the Common Spiders of Ohio Field Guide, written by Richard A. Bradley, and provided by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. We determined that the spider in question was most likely a variable orb weaver, which are active in Ohio from July to September. We had been calling the spider a "he," but its large size indicated that it was probably a female.

Searching “orb weaver dangerous” brought up www.termite.com/spider-identification.html#orbweaving and http://bugguide.net/node/view/1972, both of which assured us that orb weavers are not aggressive and, though they may bite if they feel threatened, the bite is comparable to a bee sting and, for most people, is nothing serious.

Famous orb weavers include Charlotte from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. The clue is in her full name, Charlotte A. Cavatica. According to http://bugguide.net, Araneus Cavaticus is the scientific name for a certain kind of orb weaver more commonly known as a barn spider.   

For more information, our patron could check out Adrienne Mason’s The World of the Spider, Richard Alan Bradley’s Common Spiders of North America, or Spiders: Learning to Love Them by Lynne Kelly, a self-proclaimed arachnophobe who decided to overcome her fear by becoming a spider-watcher. The World of the Spider is available here at Newton Falls Public Library, and both other books are available through the shared CLEVNET catalogue.

What Kind of Mushroom Is This?

“My husband found this wild mushroom out in the woods. What kind is it?” The Newton Falls Public Library staff looked at the approximately 12” by 15” fungus in a bowl.  Large, ruffled, salmon, white, and orange it almost seemed to be something that belonged at the bottom of the sea.

The first places we looked were A Field Guide to Mushrooms, North America by Kent H. McKnight, The Mushroom Book and Mushrooms by Thomas Laessøe. Each of these books has a section that uses fruit body shapes and cap features to help identify mushrooms.  Upon initial examination the patron and the staff felt that her specimen belonged to either the family Corticiaceae or Polyporaceae. The photographs in the books were not exactly like her sample, so we continued the search online.

We did an image search for each of these families of mushrooms.  We found photographs from www.wildmanstevebrill.com for two Polypores which might be likely candidates, the Berkeley’s and the chicken. Continuing on, the chicken or Chicken-of-the-Woods (as per The Mushroom Book, p.69) looks almost exactly like the one sitting on the library counter. According to what was written this mushroom, when young, is safe to eat and supposed to taste like chicken.  As our staff members are not mushroom experts, we advised our patron to find someone more familiar with them to determine if our identification was correct and it was safe to eat.

I Have This Shrub Growing in My Garden...

“I have this shrub growing in my garden,” said the Newton Falls Public Library patron, as she showed a small branch to the library staff member. “Can you help me figure out what it is?” The branch had small white flowers, about an inch long, growing in pairs from a single stalk. The leaves were opposite of each other, rather than alternating.

The library has numerous books about trees, shrubs, and wildflowers, but sometimes using the Internet can be easier for trying to identify things.  We Google searched the terms “shrub paired white flowers opposite leaves” to see what sites were suggested. The first site was thefreedictionary.com with the definition of honeysuckle. We also tried limiting the search to images, to see if any of the photographs matched our patron’s plant.

Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission’s website has a section on Eurasian Bush Honeysuckles. From the descriptions of the various honeysuckles, it appears that our patron has either a Morrow or Amur bush growing in her garden. North Carolina Wildflowers

by Jeffrey S. Pippen has a photograph of the Amur, which are described as having leaves with a “drip tip.” The one belonging to our patron has a more gradually decreasing tip. The Winter Honeysuckle on this page also looks similar, but the leaves are more rounded. The Ohio Department of Natural resources website has photographs and a factsheet about the Amur, Morrow & Tatarian Honeysuckle. The photograph and description confirm that our patron’s shrub is a Morrow.

Tracks in the Snow

“These are the tracks we saw outside our house following the last snow,” said the Newton Falls Public Library patron as he showed us a photograph of the single file line of small animal tracks. “Can you help me figure out what kind of animal would make them?” Even though it is hard to think of snow and winter now that spring has arrived, the library staff finds the photograph intriguing. The tracks appear to be about 2 ½ inches long and spaced approximately 8 inches apart. The patron had not measured them, so we were estimating based upon their size in comparison to the solar lights.

Tracking & the Art of Seeing: how to read animal tracks & sign by Paul Rezendes includes both photographs and drawings of animal tracks. Browsing through the book, we read that there are different kinds of patterns. The “domestic dog is a double- or indirect-registering animal (p.178).” The red fox has a regular walking pattern, going in almost a straight line. It is a direct-registering animal. The walking gait of the red fox “is usually a straight, precise, narrow line of tracks (p.179),” and the accompanying drawing bears that out. This is because the fox walks with the hind foot directly on top of the track of the front one.

 Using the Key to Tracks in The Peterson Field Guide to Animal Tracks by Olaus J. Murie and Mark Elbroch, the shape resembles those of the weasel, the coyote, and the red fox. The weasel track is a bit small, measuring less than 2 inches. The coyote and red fox are both much closer matches. The coyote has a print of 2 ¼ to 3 ½ inches long. The red fox’s is between 1 7/8 and 2 7/8 inches. The coyote trail through snow (p. 163) shows the tracks in a straight line, but they are spaced 14 to 15 inches apart.


Both coyotes and red foxes have been seen in the area around our patron’s home. Going by the size, spacing, and straight line of the tracks, our patron feels satisfied that they were left by the red fox.