Species of the Week: Deer Mouse

Photo by Whitney Quenneville

Scientific name: Peromyscus maniculatus

It was a few weeks ago, during one of our Silver Queen Mine open houses, that we opened up one of the miner’s storage trunks to find a family of three little deer mice curled up in an old shoe! The deer mouse is a small rodent that ranges from 11-18 cm in length. Their most distinguishing feature are their round eyes that are noticeably larger than those of other Ontario mice species. Their main food source is seeds, but as an opportunistic species, they will eat things like berries, insects, and fungi.

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Species of the Week: Fly Agaric Mushroom

Scientific name: Aminita muscaria

The Fly Agaric Mushroom is an extremely poisonous mushroom that is easily identified by its bright red or yellow cap with white textured spots. You may recognize the red-capped Fly Agaric as the most popular representation of mushrooms throughout pop culture, seen in video games like Super Mario Brothers and Minecraft!

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Species of the Week: Common Toadskin Lichen

Photo by Murphys Point PP

Scientific name: Lasallia papulosa

Look closely at granite cliff faces and boulders here at the park and you just might see Common Toadskin Lichen! This type of Blistered Navel Lichen is an umbilicate lichen (a.k.a. A lichen which attaches to its substrate at a single point), and thrives on acidic rocks such as granite. Like other lichens, Common Toadskin consists of two organisms; an algal phycobiont (which provides food via photosynthesis) and a fungal mycobiont (which absorbs nutrients from the outside world and provides shelter to the algae).

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