I should begin with explaining what a lichen is. A good lichenologist friend of mine described it as: "a fungus that has discovered agriculture". It is a mutualistic relationship between a fungus and an alga (single-celled photosynthetic organism). The fungus provides a habitat for the algae, and the algae provides food for the fungus).
 |
| from: http://www.deanza.edu/faculty/mccauley/6a-labs-fungi-01.htm |
|
|
|
|
|
They normally grow on rocks (and are among the first to colonize after deglaciation):
or on trees:
or on the ground:
They grow extremely slowly and don't have active mobility, so you can understand my surprise, when I saw a patch of lichen running around very quickly.
Through the magic of google search, I found out it is an insect in the family
Chrysopidae (Green lacewings). When the nymphs grow up, they turn into something like this:
