Strange Jelly Discovered!!!

Tree Snot – the intricate and often overlooked wonders of woodland life.

Sometimes when you go for a nature walk you go with a specific subject matter in mind such as listening to birds in spring, to catch insects on a warm summer day, particularly hoverflies; or as autumn draws-in search for galls and leaf miners, before the trees shed their leaves and the first frosts appear. During such a ramble I always keep an eye out for anything unusual, a natural history curiosity, something either observed behaviourally, or on this occasion a new species to add to my records.

This was one such day, on the apex of a leaf just dangling down about head height on the edge of a path, close to a stream was this translucent blob. It looked on closer inspection to a be like a translucent woodlouse as it had a speckled appearance with ridges. The common woodlouse has a smooth shiny exoskeleton made up of plates with yellow patches and so I wondered if this might be the exuviae, as the woodlouse grows and develops. However, it seemed a long distance from a stone, where one would find such critters.

As I started going out on nature walks and joined the British Naturalist Association my interests in all facets of the natural world developed from birds, to mosses to moths and on to other insects and as such so did my volumes of identification books I would carry with me, add in some pots, a pair of binoculars and a net and every walk became an expedition which over time was not good for my back.

 

So, I migrated into using Apps, which I downloaded onto my I-pad, to replace my books. These pads, a bit like a laptop, can be large and quite a weight. So eventually I got an i-phone and transferred the Apps and books over. This allows me to have at my fingertips hundreds of Identification guides in my pocket, as well as it being much kinder to my back. These digital downloads normally get me to species level on most flora and fauna, but none were much help when it came to this blob, so where does one start?

 

So, I tried Google Lens (available on any smartphone). Using Google Lens for identification is a bit hit and miss but, on this occasion, it offered a suggestion as first choice that seemed plausible. This was surprising, it returned a photo of the exact same gelatinous specimen that was before me, how excited was I. On returning home I flicked through several books, but not one gave a similar illustration or even mentioned this curiosity.

 

The identification that Google Lens presented me as its top suggestion was a gelatinous egg mass of a caddisfly called Mottled Sedge (Glyphotaelius pellucidus). Further research which then ensued, through the internet, showed this to be one of only a few Caddisflies to lay its eggs in such a way.

Link showing the caddisfly larva:

https://www.bioimages.org.uk/html/r169188.htm?1

 

There are 199 UK species of caddisflies of which most build a protective home out of small stones or leaves or a combination of the two, as well there being a few case-less forms. The Mottled Sedge larva is one of those fascinating critters found in still, slow-running water that builds its home out of leaves. Mottled sedge as a larva can live and feed camouflaged from much bigger organisms that potentially could eat it. Here it lives from October to April before turning into an adult, which is not aquatic. As a pupa it floats to the surface where it transforms into an adult, a time when its most vulnerable whilst its mottled brown and cream wings dry, it reminds me of why fake caddisflies are used as fishing bait.

 

Link showing the adult caddisfly:

https://petehillmansnaturephotography.wordpress.com/mottled-sedge-glyphotaelius-pellucidus/

 

As an adult it mates, from which the female will lay its eggs of these gelatinous masses on the surface of leaves hanging over a water body. One female may lay up to six egg masses each getting smaller. The yellow eggs that hatch as larva fall into the water repeating the cycle. This was a large gelatinous mass so presume it might have been the 1^st set of eggs laid by said female.

 

But what a find ….. I thought so….. anybody else seen any?

 

Next time you wander out have a look and see if you can find egg masses as evidence of caddisfly larvae living in a water body close by. Or try Google Lens on a specimen and see if it identifies it.