Have you ever seen these tiny tufts of fluff floating on the wind? I have, but I never knew that they were alive until a couple weeks ago. My son snatched one out of the air. He looked at what he collected and then said, "Hey, this is a bug!"
Yes, indeed, it was a bug. It looked like a tiny flyfishing lure.
This bug is called a Woolly Aphid. They suck tree sap. As a group they can look like mold or lichen on a tree. When they are adults they grow wings and fly/float to other trees.
They are know by the cutest common names:
‘flying mice,’ ‘cotton fairies,’ ‘fluff bugs,’ ‘poodle flies,’ and ‘fluffy gnats.’
And they are a really cute!
For further reading and more pictures of Woolly Aphids check this page out:
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