Several years ago in Newquay, Cornwall, I was staying in a youth hostel with some friends. Sat out front, I noticed a creature on the wooden decking. It was possibly a centimetre or so in length, and very thin, looking like a small caterpillar or centipede. It was moving in an ingenious way. With one end holding on to the wood, it held the rest of its lengh straight at an angle to the surface. It would then then vibrate and flap around as if blown by the wind, although there was no wind that day. Every 20 seconds or so, as the other end came to rest on the surface somewhere, it would very quickly grab on, bend its length to bring the back end up to the front end, and then straighten itself out to start the whole process again.
The decking was a light-coloured wood, and the creature was the same colour, so it looked exactly like a splinter blown by the wind. It was so well camouflaged that when I pointed it out to my friends they only recognised it when it moved.
What was it, and apart from wooden decking, where in the natural world would it be beneficial to disguise oneself as a splinter?
