A
warm west-facing wall in a rural setting, lighted at night, with a shade canopy
over it during the day. (Yes, the little church.) Moths and other
critters gather under the light at night and remain at dawn protected from the
sun. A veritable panoply of bug species.
I
didn’t take the long shot, showing all the little dots on the wall, but I did
get some close-ups.
With
a little (okay, a lot of) help from AI, these appear to be lichen moths with an
individual webworm moth in the middle. The caterpillars of lichen moths
feed on, you guessed it, lichen. The chemicals in the digested lichen
then make the caterpillars taste bad to some potential predators.
I’m
going to send out a few more bug pictures from that wall, and with any luck
I’ll get corrected if I’m off base with my identifications. I’m not a bug
expert, and as we all know, AI can and does, make the occasional bad assumption
or mistake. For now, anyway.
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