On a summer’s night Juergen searched the rainforest for bioluminescent ghost fungus. Scanning the darkness for the strange glow, faint to the naked eye, he was rewarded with this magical sight: clusters of ghost fungus seeming to climb the base of a dead tree.
The bioluminescence of ghost fungus results from a chemical interaction between a compound known as luciferin and the luciferase enzyme in the presence of oxygen. The function of this glow remains a mystery to be solved.
Germany/Australia
Juergen is a natural history and conservation photographer living in Tropical North Queensland, Australia. He is as much at home taking underwater photographs in the ocean as he is in freshwater, rainforests, deserts and up in the air. He is a Senior Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers. For more than 20 years, his images have been used for marine conservation by WWF.
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