Species of the Day - Days 2 & 3
The terrestrial week of our bioblitz is now over, but it was a huge success with over 1000 species (and counting) recorded on iNaturalist!
Our second Quadra Island Bioblitz species of the day winner was a lichen that at first (non-microscopic) glance, looks like nothing more than some black dots on a barnacle. Not to be confused with a barnacle lichen (a lichen that looks a lot like a barnacle), this lichen on a barnacle was found in the intertidal zone on one of Quadra Island's beautiful shorelines by lichen expert @jessilynnallen73. (Curious what a barnacle lichen is? Check out some of these barnacle-esque lichens found during the bioblitz so far.)
See the observation here: https://inaturalist.ca/observations/209204436
Our third species of the day winner was also photographed and submitted by @bstarzomski. It's an amazing but relatively inconspicuous moss called goblin's gold (AKA luminous moss) that grows best in dark, damp places where it doesn't have as many other plants to contend with. But wait—don't plants, including mosses, need light to photosynthesize? Goblin's gold gets around this by using specialized lens-shaped cells on an early stage of the gametophyte, thread-like filaments that fan out until enough light is found for growth. This stage has lens-shaped cells that can concentrate what little light is available, doing so well enough to photosynthesize even in apparently dark places.
See the observation here: https://inaturalist.ca/observations/209321927
