Searching the oak (Quercus humboldtii) dominated montane cloud forest in Chicaque near Bogota, Colombia, Tatiana Sanjuan (see below) and I found an array of Cordyceps-species. We were very lucky since there had been only one good rain that announced the end of the the dry season.
A Cordyceps currently classified with Cordyceps caloceroides, a spider parasite. Its fruiting bodies have pushed open a spider's egg sac. This Cordyceps specimen is only about 5 mm tall.
An other Cordyceps caloceroides.
Another Cordyceps caloceroides group Cordyceps growing on an idiopidae spider
below a close up of the still immature fruiting body.
A Cordyceps very close to Cordyceps variabilis
Note the sterile apex of the stroma that bears a fertile cushion in which perithecioid ascomata are immersed. The host insect should be a fly larva.
Here a link to a paper by Kathy Hodges, Richard Humber & Chris Wozniack (1998) on Cordyceps variabilis.
Isaria anamorphs
Isaria tenuipes (= Paecilomyces tenuipes) when freshly found.
Digging out carefully Isaria tenuipes (=Paecilomyces tenuipes) show the parasitized insects that serve as host. We saw probaly nearly a dozen Isaria during our two day excursion.
An unidentified Cordyceps anamorph.
Tatians Sanjuan, a leading expert on neo-tropical Cordyceps, was so kind to take me out in the woods. I had promised to share some of my photography techniques and she delivered Cordyceps objects!
Very interesting was Tatiana's confidence in Cordyceps showing up in the same location year after year.