Welcome back, citizen!

Listen to this very special Halloween episode, where we'll talk about eerie glows, a mushroom that looks like a pumpkin, and fairy rings. My guest this time is Dr. Andrew Miller from the Illinois Natural History Survey.

If you want to learn more about this episode's topics, here are some links:

Dr. Miller's co-authored article about Omphalotus

The Mushroom Expert's "conspiracy" article

Current Biology article about bioluminescence

Wikipedia's entry on fairy rings

Thank you to Dr. Andrew Miller from The Illinois Natural History Survey for sharing his expertise on Omphalotus, Dr. Marin Brewer for teaching us about fairy rings, and to Rowen Cannon for providing the transcript for this episode, which you can find here or in the transcripts tab. 

Please check out my sponsor, Lichen Landscapes, for unique cards and prints and don't forget to enter "FUNGITOWN" in the order notes.

***Update***

Fungi Town citizen, Leslie Masson, reached out to share some of her findings about this episode's fungi:

"I have a foolproof way of distinguishing chanterelles from Jack o’lanterns - put them in hot water. Jack O’Lanterns are a dye fungi so the water will become orange. When put into hot water chanterelles produce a negligible color change.

Below are photos of chanterelles (left & top)& jacks (right & bottom) in hot water."

Are you a musician? Would you like to have your version of Fungi Town (like Funky Town) featured on the show? Send your mp3 to fungitownpod [at] gmail [dot] com. 

If you're enjoying the show so far, please consider becoming a patron. Just click the green "become a Patron" button on your screen (upper right corner) or go here. For $1 a month, you get access to exclusive mini episodes of the show, for a $5 montly contribution, you get one of my new Fungi Town bumper stickers, and now there's a $10 option that gives you a choice of any of three beautiful mushroom prints by Athens artist Maggie Baxter. If you've already become a patron and want to bump up a level for the new rewards, it's easy! 

Fungi Town is written, directed and produced by Jen Parrilli and hosted on Podbean. Theme music is by the awesome Athens, GA band Shehehe. Defunked theme music is Fminor_Funk_BassGroove_100bpm by GRD-music, evil monster laugher by maarten.tepaske, both used via Creative Commons license through Freesound. 

You can find Fungi Town on Facebook. Twitter, and Instagram: @fungitownpod or email at fungitownpod[at]gmail[dot]com. Check out the new YouTube channel! Once the channel hits 100 subscribers, I'll be doing a fantastic fungi giveaway!