Yesterday was really nice out, but not so much today, eh.
This moth stayed at the backdoor all day yesterday. Surprise, it is not there today LOL. Tentative ID is the Half-Wing (Phigalia titea). It is in the Geometridae family.
Second moth from yesterday was a Bent-line Carpet (Costaconvexa centrostrigaria). Also a Geometrid Moth. It is the only species in its genus. The larva feeds on smartweed so it must have been off course. (BugGuide) No smartweed at our house. However, in that same family, Polygonaceae, there are plants like Curly Dock (Rumex) and Wild Buckwheat (Eriogonum) which it might use. And we do have those here at the house.
Remember this lichen I shared with you a few days ago? It has a positive UV of yellow. Today I worked further on it.
These are its spores in the asci (sacks that holds the spores). The blue color is a reaction to the iodine from starches.
When I added the iodine to it, the spores turned orange. The spores don’t often do that in my observations.
A closer look at the spores. They were huge for spores! They were a whooping 160 to 180 microns long! It is a Pertusaria species.
If you live in North Texas, maybe you got a bit of the rain, sleet and snow today. The sleet did accumulate briefly on our sidewalk but melted rather quickly. Our high was 37.9 degrees and high gust of 22mph. Brrrr today! Tomorrow looks a sight better!
The fluorescent twig is pretty cool. We miss so much. We had a bit of rain, sleet and snow this morning too. Streets dry now.
Nice! Hope moth is hiding today.
Amazing photos – love the ant bridge.
And the photo of kelp in the Abbot article is beautiful