Something strange I saw during today’s hike

I went for a walk in my familiar forest today.  While I was walking along a trail on a ridge, I suddenly heard a rustling sound. I braced myself, only to see two deer cross the path about 50 meters ahead. Deer are okay, but if it had been a bear, it would have been all over. Because of bears, I haven’t been able to do much hiking on mountain trails this year.

On my way back, as I was walking down a narrow trail, I came across a bright yellow cluster of thin thorns. It was very light; it flew away when I blew on it. At first, I thought it was some kind of plant flower, but it turned out to be something completely different. I think it's the shed skin of a moth larvae, specifically the yellow tussock moth. The larva has a distinctive feature, the red, protruding tuft of hair-like thorns. This was my first time seeing the shed skin of this larva. I think the reason yellow thorns were curled up was because it was a shed skin.

I found some long, slender yellow mushrooms. Actually, every year, I see white slender mushrooms in this forest, commonly known as fairy fingers or white spindles coral in English. It is called *shiro-soumen-take* in Japanese. *Soumen* is Japanese thin wheat noodles. Then it turns out this is its yellow species called *ki-soumen-take*. The diameter of this 500-yen coin is 26.5mm.

This is also a weird mushroom (fungus), isn't it?　It is called White saddle or Elfin saddle in English. It certainly does resemble a bicycle saddle.

This is another species of fungus belonging to the same genus. But its stalk has grooves, and the part corresponding to the pileus (cap in casual term) isn't frayed unlike the above fungus.

This is the familiar collared earthstar. What you see on the left is a young fungus whose outer layer has not yet unfolded.

There are also these smaller species of earthstar. That’s so cute!

Photos were taken on October 18th and 21st, 2026 in Maibara City, Shiga Pref., Japan.