LIVING LIGHTY
I have been reading Where Song Began – Australia’s birds and how they changed the world by Tim Low and was delighted in his chapter on the importance of lerps.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This quote described lerps delightfully.
"In 1880 W. Wooster explained what lerp was. “Tiny insects ‘in the larval state protect themselves from the sun and their enemies by building over themselves little tents, or rather crystal palaces, composed of a gummy and sugary secretion, which is exuded in a semi-liquid state from the tube at the hinder end of the body’.”
These insects are aphid-like bugs called psyllids.
They are an important source of food during hard times for many species of birds and animals as well.
I was looking for lerps to photograph and found a dead Eucalypt leaf with a very brown lerp still attached.
I peeled back the lerp and a psyllid lava came out of its silken nest and waved itself around (impossible to photograph because it was so fast) and then caught hold of the outer edge of the lerp covering and pulled it back over itself.
How is that for self preservation?
