This post has content warnings for: trypophobia.
posts from @wild-e-eep tagged #cthulu close-ups
also:
awww yiss... I finally found an ammonite shell!
Now I just need to free it from this... uh, horned honeycomb hellscape.
Okay, so not really an ammonite - it's the shell of a marine worm - one of the Spirorbidae.
The honeycomb is an overgrowing bryozoan, maybe Electra pilosa.
All this is going on on a blade of sea weed, washed up on the beach, and is mostly quite small!
and so my next super-fancy caterpillar is...
hmmm...
...not a caterpillar?
Turns out this is an abnormal growth condition in plants called fasciation. In which a normally cylindrical structure deforms into a crest-shape. Here it is affecting a rosebay willowherb flower.