From the Brickhills – A Lichen Disguise – Julie Cuthbert

Recently Rob came home with a very dead looking, 2-metre high, Holly tree stump. He was sure that we could resurrect it if we gave it some love. I wasn’t convinced but planted it in a large pot and hoped for the best too. Every week we scoured the stump for signs of a bud breaking through but it stayed unchanged, gnarled like elephant skin and tinged green-grey with lichen.

While we were performing one of our inspections, Rob suddenly noticed the tiniest blip near to the top of the trunk and said excitedly, “It’s a bud!” When I went in closer with my glasses on, I could see what looked like a scuffed-up mound of lichen around the size of half an apple seed. While I was studying the area, it suddenly raised up and then started running about. “It’s definitely not a bud. I’m getting the cameras.”

Once we had our macro lenses focused on the strange alien thing we were amazed, as we had never seen anything like it before. Its body part was amassed in Lichen and tufts of bristly hairs. It had fierce red pincers and ran about like crazy. After some research we were able to identify it as a Common Green Lacewing larva Chrysoperla carnea and learnt that they cloak themselves in anything they can find to deter predation. Lacewing larvae will use plant debris, lichen, insect shells and anything else they can find; these they cache on their back bristles.

I have always appreciated the delicacy of the adult Green Lacewing and remember them to be everywhere when I was a child, but I rarely see them now.

It’s unlikely the Holly will come to life this late in the season, but it has still acted as a good host to this creature. It’s also had several Toadflax Brocade caterpillars Calophasia lunula marching up it, searching for somewhere ideal to pupate, so maybe we’ll be keeping our dead Holly tree after all.

Julie Cuthbert
October 2024

Photos of Common Green Lacewing larva (top) and Toadflax Brocade caterpillar (bottom) © Julie Cuthbert