June 8, 2011

As I was walking home from the river a week ago Saturday, I cut through the front of our property rather than follow the driveway toward the house. We’d had so much rain this whole spring that the ground was very soggy. When I came to a spot with standing water, I was amazed to see Leptothrix discophora on the surface. I’m guessing that the heavy rains had something to do with encouraging the growth of the microbe, but I don’t know what. See those little scuff marks on the surface of the film in the second photograph? I think an insect made them as it walked across the film. The last photograph is from a trip my friend Britt and I took four days earlier to nearby Bacon Woods, where we found a small but colorful patch of the bacterium. Thirty-two photos of L. discophora that I’ve taken over the years are on the website. Click on the small website image to see the whole photograph.