The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has announced its species of the day, and it’s a beautifully weird one. Its scientific name is Erioderma pedicellatum, but what is it?
It’s not an animal, nor is it a plant, exactly. It’s a lichen, which is a mingling of plant and fungus. Its common name is boreal felt lichen. It grows only on the branches of trees in the arctic forests of a certain parts of Arctic America, where logging is so extensive that the lichen is now in decline.
The IUCN writes that efforts to protect the lichen’s habitat are “hopefully giving the Boreal Felt Lichen a brighter future” – only not literally. Hopefully, the lichen will be enjoying a shadowy and moist future.
Now that we’ve reached the end of this article, there is some cause to celebrate: I made it through this entire article without making a pun using the word “lichen”.
