A Field Guide to the North Side of Old Mill Hill, Atlantic Mine, MI
Posts tagged ‘detrivore’
We had quite a plague of these European Earwigs (Forficula auricularia)[1] back in July, when there was still some moisture about. Now that it has been very dry for a few months their numbers have plummeted, but for a while there we were literally finding heaps of them every time we turned over a rock or picked up a board.
The back part of our property drains into Cole’s Creek, which empties into Portage Lake about a mile to the west of us. It’s a pretty substantial stream, and one of the better places for catching smelt[1]. S_ has been going down there from time to time to check if the smelt run has started, so last weekend she suggested that we all go there to poke around in a stream bigger than the one beside the house and see what we could find. We probably didn’t find anything that isn’t in our little micro-creek[2], but we did find some photograph-worthy specimens. Like these guys:
An accidental capture
So, while we were capturing the Gammarus for last week’s entry, we scooped up some water from the stream into a jar to put them in. In the process, since the stream was so shallow, we got some debris off of the bottom into the jar, too. Then, when we got it back to the house and started looking at what we had, S_ noticed that one of the bits of debris was oddly symmetrical and had a hole in one end[1]. So, we put it into the petri dish along with the amphipods, and waited to see if anything came out. Something did:
Not really a freshwater shrimp
Last Sunday, it was pretty warm, and S_ suggested that it would be a good day to take Sam down to the stream[1] to turn over some rocks to see what was underneath[2]. So, I grabbed this rock that was in the middle of the stream, turned it over, and found about 20 of these clinging to the bottom:
