One moss species grows only on four-week-old deer droppings in July.

Evidence

But no moss is more fastidious in its choice of habitats than Splachnum . Absent from the usual mossy haunts, Splachnum is found only in bogs. Not among the commoners like Sphagnum that build the peaty hummocks, not along the margin of the blackwater pools. Splachnum ampullulaceum occurs in one, and only one, place in the bog. On deer droppings. On white-tailed deer droppings. On white-tailed deer droppings which have lain on the peat for four weeks. In July. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 487

Categorization

• CANDY: A moss that lives only on deer droppings, four weeks old, in July — a perfect party fact about absurd ecological specialization.
• SHARE: Worth sending to the reader’s ecology-minded contact who would appreciate a species with a single-host micro-niche defined by age, age-of-substrate, and season.
• XREF: connects to: Moss species occupy strikingly narrow, even single-host, habitat niches. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 486; Moss colonies establish only through a rare, poorly understood succession — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 519

Broader Connections

• Moss colonies establish only through a rare, poorly understood succession #expands (0.72) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 519