A filamentous something in southwest Portland

[raven]

A friend who lives among trees along Arnold Creek in southwest Portland found an oddity growing under a bench on her porch this week. The environment, although damp, is out of the direct rain and dew.







Any ideas? The few dark external filaments are apparently new, and great enlargement shows dark spots, that may contain spores or may be blown dirt. Enlargements are available.

[anna in boots]

Hate to tell you this, raven, but that looks an awful lot like the fibers that grow out of ancient kitty doots if left uncovered. Could something of the feline persuasion have, um, left it's mark there?

anna in boots

[raven]

Highly likely a kitty barfed there. So, it may well be a monster from inner space. But what kind of monster is it?

[anna in boots]

Start your research here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077305/ Oh, you said inner space....

Well, here's something to start, anyway http://www.oddrob.com/catFacts.asp

purrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

anna in boots

[raven]

All leads have gone nowhere, apart from a complex of organisms found in watery environments -- waste watery -- and if this were one of those it would be a monster by comparison. My friend has had cats for the last 30 or so years in that house -- and other cats earlier -- without seeing anything akin to this. Whatever it is growing on has not been there for long, and in a week our white friend went from first being noticed at less than an inch in the largest dimension to about four inches today. In the photos it is about 3.5 wide, deep and tall. While I found references to small critters forming 3 millimeter long fibrils, these hair-like growths are thirty times as long, and stiff enough to be erect.

'Tis surely a monstrous little perplexity, tain't it?