Invert Tuesdays meets Paris Museum of Modern Art

Invert Tuesdays 003: Trichoptera

If you like jewellery, you’ll really like these invertebrates! Some families in this order build cases or retreats that can surround their body from the legs down. These are important for how some of them breathe and how they can collect their food. They gather bits of sand, plant, or even small rocks that are around them, and they stick these together by using silk that they produce. There is a very large variety of cases that can be made by different Trichopterans, some of which are even made by the silk alone!  

Photos by Alyssa Frazao

Are you wondering how jewellery could possibly come into play? Well, if small jewels, or bits of silver and gold are placed around them, they will pick them up and make a case out of them! They make for pretty neat earrings and necklaces! 

Members of the order Trichoptera, the caddisflies, recently collaborated with French artist Hubert Duprat and created beautiful cases made from gold and opalescent gems that will be displayed in the Paris Museum of Modern Art in an exhibition this September.

Unfortunately, we don’t get very many of the Trichopterans in our headwater streams, but when we do, it usually tells us there was faster-flowing water. Many of the headwater streams in our area don’t flow very fast, so it’s often a treat to find these in our samples!