My first love will always be Collembola
April 17, 2017 1:19 PM Subscribe
A Chaos of Delight: The Wonderful World of Soil Mesofauna is the gorgeously photographed website of a macro photographer and obsessive fan of the strange, tiny animals that live in our soil. "For the last two years I've been travelling the world, studying and photographing Collembola, my greatest passion. This website was set up to have as complete an overview of the mesofauna as possible, within the limits of what I find funny."
gaahhhhhhh I just did yard clean-up this weekend, moving the piles of dead leaves that had hung out all winter, and now am regretting being lax in not wearing gloves, these creepers were probably all over my hands ghahhaaahhh ick ick ick ick ick
related: I got a composter and was all excited to make COMPOST! until last summer when i opened it up and there were all matter of bugs, worms, etc etc in there. Now, I fear my compost, and I don't know what to do with it. I peeked in it this weekend thinking that whatever was alive had probably died over the winter, so maybe I could scoop some out and spread it over my plants. I couldn't tell if there were bugs, bug eggs, or pieces of perlite throughout (I chucked my leftover potting soil in there), so, I closed it back up.
If anyone wants some compost that is probably pretty good and also a nice composter (a black plastic thing that rolls around on a base, so you can just throw things in there and give it a spin every day or so) plz come over.
posted by Fig at 1:57 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
related: I got a composter and was all excited to make COMPOST! until last summer when i opened it up and there were all matter of bugs, worms, etc etc in there. Now, I fear my compost, and I don't know what to do with it. I peeked in it this weekend thinking that whatever was alive had probably died over the winter, so maybe I could scoop some out and spread it over my plants. I couldn't tell if there were bugs, bug eggs, or pieces of perlite throughout (I chucked my leftover potting soil in there), so, I closed it back up.
If anyone wants some compost that is probably pretty good and also a nice composter (a black plastic thing that rolls around on a base, so you can just throw things in there and give it a spin every day or so) plz come over.
posted by Fig at 1:57 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
these creepers were probably all over my hands ghahhaaahhh ick ick ick ick ick
those lil critters were doing phoresy on you! yay!
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:06 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
those lil critters were doing phoresy on you! yay!
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:06 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
I love how there are pinterest "pin it" overlays on all of the (incredible) pictures. It's nice to imagine browsing somebody's pinterest page full of handbags and cakes and interior decorations and then all of a sudden there is a terrifying otherwordly ghost scorpion in high definition tilt-shift.
posted by ropeladder at 2:08 PM on April 17, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by ropeladder at 2:08 PM on April 17, 2017 [7 favorites]
Forcipomyiinae FTW! Check out the BALLOON ANIMALS AND THE HUSSARS.
This sections is so cool! I mean LOOK at this guy!
posted by Kabanos at 2:11 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
This sections is so cool! I mean LOOK at this guy!
posted by Kabanos at 2:11 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
related: I got a composter and was all excited to make COMPOST! until last summer when i opened it up and there were all matter of bugs, worms, etc etc in there.
i hate to break this to you, but those bugs and worms are what make it compost and not just decaying leftovers
posted by murphy slaw at 2:19 PM on April 17, 2017 [14 favorites]
i hate to break this to you, but those bugs and worms are what make it compost and not just decaying leftovers
posted by murphy slaw at 2:19 PM on April 17, 2017 [14 favorites]
those lil critters were doing phoresy on you! yay!
Some people can't see the phoresy for the fleas.
posted by Kabanos at 2:25 PM on April 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
Some people can't see the phoresy for the fleas.
posted by Kabanos at 2:25 PM on April 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
I mean LOOK at this guy!
That's like if HR Giger and Dr. Seuss had a baby.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:36 PM on April 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
That's like if HR Giger and Dr. Seuss had a baby.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:36 PM on April 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
I loved this so much, loved the gorgeous photos, loved the info about meso-fauna, loved the writing etc. etc. etc. Until I got to the "About Me" page where I found that the author feels the need to publicly state that he finds many beliefs in a variety of subjects to be "silly." While none of the things he listed as silly are of any intetest to me, I still find it off-putting when someone of a scientific bent feels the need to, unprevoked, start demeaning other people's interests. Anyway, it was a great post I enjoyed very much, its just too bad the writer turned out to be a bit of an ass.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:02 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:02 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
These are fabulous. Thank you. I loved seeing springtails and critters like them in nature documentaries, and these pictures are amazeballs.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:12 PM on April 17, 2017
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:12 PM on April 17, 2017
I feel bad for the pseudoscorpions, who I imagine have self-image problems. "We may not be scorpions, but we're real!" they cry, in their tiny adorable voices.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:28 PM on April 17, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:28 PM on April 17, 2017 [5 favorites]
I was on the mites page, when I came across this stunner of a line about Demodex follicle mites: "They have no anus, so instead of excreting, they eventually explode and die in a tiny shower of faeces."
posted by avoision at 4:26 PM on April 17, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by avoision at 4:26 PM on April 17, 2017 [11 favorites]
Don't fear your compost critters! I like having my compost in the open air so the birds eat them, though. And you get the occasional raccoon or possum browsing the buffet. Try dumping your compost out in a yard corner somewhere, let the bugs scatter a bit, then go see what you have.
posted by emjaybee at 5:12 PM on April 17, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 5:12 PM on April 17, 2017 [3 favorites]
i remember coming across springtails when browsing around invertebrate taxonomies on wikipedia (such are my hobbies) and thinking, "huh, they're like primitive insects that never quite got their shit together" and then read further and learned that they're actually one of the most successful and numerous multicellular organisms on earth.
which is just another reminder that the teleological interpretation of evolution is bullshit.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:17 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
which is just another reminder that the teleological interpretation of evolution is bullshit.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:17 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
They have no anus, so instead of excreting, they eventually explode and die in a tiny shower of faeces.
God is great.
posted by theodolite at 7:47 PM on April 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
God is great.
posted by theodolite at 7:47 PM on April 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
I lurve collembolans so much. They are so tiny and poochy and cute. And when they decide to spring away! *fwing!*
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 8:44 AM on April 18, 2017
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 8:44 AM on April 18, 2017
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posted by prize bull octorok at 1:35 PM on April 17, 2017 [9 favorites]