You may initially think the title of today’s post is move related and that I found worms in my baggage when packing/unpacking, but no. Bagworm is the rather unflattering name for the moth Luffia lapidella, also known as Ramshorn bagworm, Virgin smoke, and Grey bagworm, whose larvae create cases to live in from the lichen they also like to eat. I’ve only ever found single cases before (see Casebearer: Luffia lapidella, February 2024), and those only twice in the ten years I’ve been living in the UK, so, when I found this site with well over 20 cases, I thought the species was worth revisiting with another blog.

The location was unexpected: they are all living on the metal railings that run along one side of a path by the River Ely in Cardiff but the waterside location means the undersides of all those railings are covered in lichen and, fortunately, they’re never cleaned, so the bagworms have found the perfect place to live.

Luffia lapidella is a very odd moth. The main moth websites in the UK all say that ‘only the self-fertile wingless female is known’, though I did find a blog, British Lepidoptera, that says males do occur in Cornwall. That website also shows a photo of a deceased female and photos of the larvae that lives in their colourful lichen ‘bags’.