Dry rot be more distinctive in these species than water translocation. Water translocated in this fashion carries nutrients to the extremities of the organism; not, as is sometimes inferred, to simply render dry timber wet enough to attack. Coggins goes into more detail about water movement in "Serpula lacrymans". The perpetual saturation of wood with water also inhibits dry rot, as does perpetual dryness. "Dry rot" would appear to be a paradoxical term seemingly indicating decay of a substance by a fungus without the presence of water. However, its historical usage dates back to the distinction between decay of cured wood in
Nemapogon granella are uniformly greyish-brown and surrounded by a fringe of long hairs. On the head, the adults have a tuft of yellowish-white hairs. The caterpillar larvae eat rotting wood in the wild, though they prefer bracket fungi, usually Polyporales. Their mainstay food included Polyporaceae such as sulphur polypore ("Laetiporus sulphureus"), dryad's saddle ("Polyporus squamosus") or turkey tail ("Trametes versicolor"), as well as Fomitopsidaceae, e.g. birch polypore ("Piptoporus betulinus"). But they have also been found on "Serpula lacrymans" of the quite unrelated Boletales. Larvae in association with humans will feed on a variety of dry organic material, such as dried fruit (e.g.bilberries,