Picture of the Week: #16

Slightly weird one for you today. This is a caddisfly that I found fluttering around my room the other day - it sat next to my laptop for a minute, so I took the opportunity to take its photo. To give you a sense of scale, the green object is the plug on my external mouse - it's just over 3cm long. Caddisflies apparently hatch underwater, which I find slightly odd as there's no open water for quite some distance around here, so presumably it's either very determined or has emerged from a rather unsanitary pool somewhere closer to home. Either way, I think it's still a remarkably beautiful little creature. I know it's always a mistake to anthropomorphise, but doesn't it look like it's trying to comfort the mouse plug?

Incidentally, I only found out that this was indeed a caddisfly by posting this photo on the Science Reference Desk over at Wikipedia. Within about 10 minutes I had a response, which is both extremely impressive and slightly worrying. Never underestimate a gang of volunteer workers for disturbingly enthusiastic amateur sleuthing.