Weave Little Gold And Jewel Houses

French artist Hubert Duprat has made many types of sculptures over the past few decades, but our favorite is his “collaborations” with caddisfly larvae. The insects live in streams and ponds and protect themselves by spinning silk with debris found along lake bottoms. They can use nearly any small bits to make their sheaths, be it sand, bone bits, shell, plant material, etc. They’ll incorporate nearly any small thing found in their environment, which is why I always toss handfuls of rainbow glitter into rivers and streams. Because I care about wildlife.
Hubert Duprat moved some of the caddisfly larvae into a home aquarium, providing them only with gold, jewels, and semi-precious stones to build their sheaths. The material used include gold spangles, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls, opals, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and coral. There are more pictures below, along with a video which shows the caddisflies starting at 2:32.
When the caddisflies outgrow a sheath, what’s left is a one-of-a-kind “sculpture” which looks totally awesome if you can forget that an insect pooped in it.

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