Sunrise
Pins and needles
The black stubble in the top photo are the fruiting bodies of a lichen. I found them growing on a piece of weathered cedar of an old birdhouse. I had set up that birdhouse about twenty-five years ago at the edge of a field and forest. Over the years, as the forest grew around the birdhouse, these tiny lichens began growing on the wood.
Lichens are a varied lot. Depending on the species, they can look like dust, little shrubs, gossamer, leaves, or overlapping shingles. Some lichens, like the one in the top photo, resemble whisker stubble or tiny straight pins. They are, fittingly, called whisker lichens and pin lichens.
Whisker lichens are minute, measuring just 1 to 2 millimeters in size. Most only grow on old wood or the bark of old trees. Many species are considered indicators of stable forest environments with long-term ecological continuity.
Taxonomy
The fungal partner (mycobiont) in whisker lichens are members of the Ascomycota, a group of fungi known as cup fungi or sac fungi. Familiar Ascomycota include morels, penicillium molds, and yeasts that are used to ferment bread and beer.
The algal partner (photobiont) is a green alga, usually a species of Trebouxia, a genus of unicellular algae that exists in almost all habitats. They can be free-living, but many species form symbiotic relationships with fungi to form lichens.
Description and terminology
The thallus (body) of whisker lichens may be minutely rough-surfaced (verruculose-granular) or immersed. If immersed, the fungal hyphae and the algae photobiont grow just below the surface of the substrate.
Whatever the thallus form, the apothecia (fruiting bodies) are borne on a long or short stalk, or rarely, sessile. They may be gray, blackish-brown, or greenish-black. At the top of the apothecia is a globose to lenticular capitulum (“little head”), a cup-shaped structure that produces spores.
Determining species
Species determination in whisker lichens is complicated. Morphological characters can only go so far. At best, you might get to genus. For positive identification, microscopic examination of the capitulum and spores is necessary.
Finding whisker lichens
I have found whisker lichens growing on weathered jack pine twigs while photographing other lichens. Most of the ones I have seen seem to prefer old, weathered wood, but I did find one on green crustose lichen that was growing on an alder branch. It may have been a lichen parasite. These are interesting fungi that you can find with a hand lens, or in my case, a macro lens, scanning up and down the trunks and branches of trees, weathered wood, and other lichens.
Further reading
Wordless Wednesday
Finding Williams’ Tiger Moth in Minnesota
In a previous life, I searched for and documented rare plant species. But I was always curious about everything in nature, so I made it a point to learn as much as I could about all the things in the forests, glades, lakes, and swamps I explored. Sometimes I would make an interesting discovery, like the moth in the above photo.
I find a new moth
A few years back, while on a rare plant survey, I found a tiger moth that I later identified as Apantesis williamsii (Williams’ Tiger Moth). I found the moth in Cook County, Minnesota, in the Superior National Forest (SNF). It was simply lying in the middle of an old logging road just waiting to be found, I guess.
I’d never seen a moth quite like this one. I photographed it (I would have anyway no matter if it was new to me or not) and took some notes about the surrounding area. Then I GPS-ed the location, which is about 20 miles south of the US-Canadian border.
Because blueberry pickers were using the road that day, I carefully moved the moth to a safe spot. Then I got back to that day’s mission, searching for rare plants in the forest and the rare Nabokov’s blue butterfly (Lycaeides idas nabokovi). It might have been in the area as its larval host plant, Vaccinium cespitosum (dwarf bilberry), grew nearby in a prescribed burn. I found plenty of dwarf bilberry that day, but no sign of Nabokov’s blue butterfly. Not even a caterpillar.
Not a common species in Minnesota
Apantesis williamsii is uncommon in Minnesota. It appears that there are only two records before 2018. One record is from Cook County, the same county where I found this one, up in the northeastern corner of the state. The other is from Lake of the Woods County in the Northwest Angle, right on the US-Canadian border, found in 2017.
Since then, additional sightings of Apantesis williamsii have been made. Two other sightings (here and here) were made in Minnesota in 2018, but from northern St. Louis County, about 50 miles west near Ely, and also close to the Boundary Waters and Canada.
Globally secure
This is not a rare species globally, but based on the small number of sightings, it appears to be uncommon in Minnesota. Most records of Apantesis williamsii are from the Cordillera, starting in Saskatchewan, Canada, and then south through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico in the western US. It occurs sporadically elsewhere, with scattered reports from Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick in Canada, and in Michigan and Maine in the US.
Habitat preferences
In the main part of its range, Apantesis williamsii can be found in mountain meadows at middle to high elevations. It also occurs in quaking aspen forests and dry coniferous forests with sandy soil. The latter isn’t too different from the site where I found it. This was in a forest of aspen, birch, spruce, and fir with some jack pine and white pine on sandy soil. The weather is also cool in the summer, although climate change may upend that.
What does it it eat?
Larval food plants of Apantesis williamsii are not known, but it may feed on low-growing herbaceous vegetation like other species of Apantesis.
Not Very Far Away 