I found this raft of living arthropods floating in the
overflow pool of the water garden.
Riding the surface tension of the water, they have been drawn together
into a colorful wriggling mass.
At first glance, the living raft appeared to be just another
collection of debris floating across the water.
There’s always something floating in the water. Usually it’s just dust or accumulated pollen
or debris from the dwarf pine that hangs over one edge of the pool. On rare occasions there will be something strange
trapped by the water, so I stop and take a look every time I go past.
The sun reflecting from the little bodies caused the whole
cluster to sparkle. Besides those
creatures already forming large aggregations, there were many floating as pairs
or single individuals. As the wind moved
the large group around the pool, it collected the single drifters into its
congregation.
It was hard to get a good look at the raft with the wind
blowing it constantly around the pool, so I scooped it up in a shallow bowl and
took it to a sheltered place for observation.
The raft seemed primarily composed of various species of Springtails and
Mites. These are common creatures of the
soil ecosystem that live near the surface of the soil or in decomposing plant
material covering the soil. Besides
being active creatures, they can exist by the thousands in a square foot of
soil surface area. It’s no wonder that a
few of them would fall into a pool of water set flush in the ground.
The various species of Springtails and Mites definitely
dominated the mix, but there were other soil arthropods present. This small spider stood free of the water and
ran unencumbered over the bodies of its companions.
A few of these denizens of the soil look quite large
compared to the others, but the largest was just at the one millimeter mark. This is what’s underfoot when you walk
through the fields. They play a vital
role in the decomposition of organic materials, release of plant nutrients and
control of soil born diseases. It’s not
often that they come out to display themselves in such an easy to view array. After the photo shoot, I released all back
onto dry land. I also quickly washed the
cereal bowl and put it back in the cupboard, before my wife saw what I was doing.
