lakeside_liu's Favourites

These are from a moss culture I found laying around. They originally looked like mites (biggest individuals ~.5mm), but upon recording seemed to be entognathans. I was going to leave it at that, but upon seeing one hop, I decided to check collembolans. Neelidae stood out, and based on distribution (I'm in NYC) and the large antennae, I think this species would make the most sense. I'd like to hear what some people more experienced with Collembola think. I plan to try culturing them, albeit the container I found them in clearly has shown to be doing that already. A certain species of mite is visible living with them too.

I know the general collection site, and roughly when I obtained them, but they are technically captive bred, so I'm leaving it at Casual for now.

A green chiton attached to a half crab. We observed this alien looking commensal beast while undertaking an intertidal survey on the reefs off Hawera. It made us jump when we first turned over the rock.

Is it a fish? Is it a slug? Is it a fishy anemone? I do not have a clue what this is!

It is about 30mm long and there were a few of them in the sand - outgoing tide nearly on the turn. Most were buried and only the "fan fin" was showing.

Resting on the wet sand, when the sand collapsed it arched it's face upwards (2nd and third photos) and seem to spawn capsule from somewhere - there are 2 floating in the 4th pic.

Totally hypnotic, by the time my sister-in-law and I carried on the brother had walked 2kms away from us!

Psaldus sp. nov.

differs from P. liosomoides by very different antennae (i.e antenomeres, scape and club).

found in large numbers from seagrass via berlese funnels. Abundant under logs, and observed to occur in chambers in the sand beneath logs.

colour and some size variation observed, some very light brown, almost dull yellow, others maroon.