I’m still tallying my results from yesterday’s BioBlitz. Looks like I might have fifty organisms where I’ll have scientific names soon. Meanwhile, I wanted to share this surprise I found when I pulled a cherry blossom closer to photograph it (below). I’d guess these are some kind of scale insect, though I haven’t yet been able to put a name on them. It would be cool if they were Dactylopius coccus, which are farmed by people to make red dye, and eaten by certain moth larvae to obtain a chemical defense against ant predators.
[...] my mother finds very disappointing. Jenn points out the “scale insects” I reported yesterday are likely to be petiolar glands. These have their own interesting story. Most likely they serve as [...]
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