On Thursday Jim Archer was holding a Pond Dipping session at the MDZ and caught this amazing Caddis fly larvae. He was so enamoured with it hat he walked it all the back to the centre in a little tank just to show us.
Many species use sand or tiny pieces of vegetation to create their little cryptic home in which to secrete themselves at the first signs of danger or whenever they rest up. Resembling the world around you is a cool way of deflecting the interest of passing predators. We have not sorted out the exact species yet but this one is very large in the world of British caddisflies being bigger than most damselfly nymphs and has seemingly cut up oval sections of reedmace leave and then overlaid them and stuck them together to for an oak leaf shape of debris.
Absolutely amazing....
23-2-14