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Finished painting and clear coating my little Arowana during the hurricane and I am delighted with him!!

Almost every paint I used was metallic, even the little green bit above his eyes, so he's incredibly shiny.

Process pics below the cut!

Made with model magic air dry clay and a couple of toothpicks inside to hold him up. Supported with a ton of tinfoil because I neglected to give him an armature at the beginning.

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I have reduced the number of snails I'm keeping and built them a far better house now, which actually holds moisture and is much easier to clean and replace their food.

I also planted seeds of things they can eat so their little house will grow food for them in the future!

I transplanted some small weed plants from the yard that the local snails seem to like nibbling on, too.

There are little caramel-cream-swirl-colored Vagrant Scrub Snails all around work, so I absconded with a few and put together a little house for them.

I make them tiny salads, and yes that is a berry flavored Tums tablet in the background for calcium. Judging by the craters they leave in it, they really like it.

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There are little caramel-cream-swirl-colored Vagrant Scrub Snails all around work, so I absconded with a few and put together a little house for them.

I make them tiny salads, and yes that is a berry flavored Tums tablet in the background for calcium. Judging by the craters they leave in it, they really like it.

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After searching for over a year for what I thought was a Bluefin Killifish, only to discover it was actually a wild Sailfin Molly that I had seen when they turned up in the pond at work, I kind of accepted that I had never seen a bluefin killifish and probably never would.

AND THEN, TO MY GREAT SURPRISE.... I found REAL Bluefin Killifish living in the very same pond.

Seeing them for the first time, they were small and even more beautiful than pictures suggested, with the brilliant blue dorsal and anal fins and a red tail.

I got to watch them zip around and display to each other during their spring courtship, though my phone camera can't quite capture the experience.

That makes two fish species with brilliant blue displays in the pond--these guys, and Sailfin Mollies!

[Video ID: A greenish pond with lots patches of grassy weeds floating just below the surface. Thin, brassy fish dart around each other, flaring brilliant, shining blue fins on their back and underside at each other.]

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Highly Mobile Booger Encountered

a.k.a. first ever time seeing a Hoverfly larva, with no idea what it was, and desperately searched until I found the answer.

Turns out they're voracious predators of aphids and considered beneficial to gardens! Adult hoverflies look like miniature bees or wasps, but they actually don't bite or sting, and politely pollinate flowers all day as well. I see tons of them in this location.

Now I desperately want to find one again.

As a person with ADHD who partially relies on constantly finding new things to learn about to balance my brain chemistry, it is so nice to know that there are an infinite number of creatures on this planet that I don't know about.

I have learned about so many bugs, snails, birds, fish, snakes, and plants just by seeing something, wondering what it is, and diving into research to find the answer. It's one of my favorite activities, and I wish I knew a way to do it for a living that didn't involve going back to college for 8 years 😭

@crevicedwelling I love seeing all your tiny creature pictures so I would like to show you this guy as well, and ask if you've ever seen one!

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A delightfully chubby Least Killifish female and a very cute "dalmatian" melanistic Mosquitofish male, both caught with a net in the retention pond at work.

I love seeing the melanistic ones--they look like little fancy guppies in the middle of the pond. I find maybe 1 for every 200 regular fish.

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New amphipod behavior observed today. In the scientific world I think they call this scaring the beejeezus out of each other

[video id: A small, shrimp-like amphipod stumbles into another of its kind before both flail wildly and swim away in opposite directions]

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What kind of creatures reside in the murky, mucky storm water retention pond at my work?

One of the world's smallest! The Least Killifish is the smallest live-bearing fish in the world! They live alongside a zillion Eastern Mosquitofish and possibly some other species I haven't caught yet to identify.

A bunch of softies! I see softshell turtles a lot, butI haven't looked up what species they are yet.

Giant, hella invasive fish! (Plecostomas added a while ago to control algae. They do not) Thankfully, the pond does not directly output to any other bodies of water, even if it floods, and it has a fish fry control grate on the overflow outlet for the grass carp that were recently added.

Gators!! Mainly small ones, safely growing bigger away from the adults. I see them basking or floating almost every day. I stumbled on this guy napping while I took a walk.

I recently got up enough courage to offer to help take care of the pond, which has an immensely thick layer of muck on the bottom and so little oxygen that the fish hang out in a few shallow channels most of the time.

To my surprise, management happily agreed and is giving me everything I requested to take care of it, including a nice aerator and hundreds of dollars of beneficial bacteria tablets. Even my suggestions to change the landscaping routine and plant native pond plants were enthusiastically accepted.

After being fired from a well paying job because I dared to ask for (completely free, barely visible) disability accommodations, this event is mind blowing to me.

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Artist's rendition of what I saw in the aquarium when I went by to get a snack last night:

(The piglet Molly was rescued immediately)

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THAT'S FOR THE ASSASSIN SNAILS YOU HEATHENS

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I have FINALLY IDENTIFIED THEM and they are NOT FANWORMS lmao

They're Bryozoans!!

Source: Flickr

Source: Gerd Guenther

Had no idea these creatures existed until I looked at a weird leaf with a cheap microscope, but how cool!! They're very common actually, and i see tons on the plants in the lake. Neat little guys.

I'll think I have a pretty good expansive knowledge of zoology and then I'll put a funny looking piece of aquatic grass under a microscope and wait that doesn't look like algae, those are....

????

FANWORMS?? THE FLUFFY THINGS THAT LIVE IN TUBES ON CORAL REEFS AND HYDROTHERMAL VENTS? THEY'RE IN THE LAKE DOWN THE ROAD?

Of the 10,000+ species of polycheates, only like 168 of them live in freshwater and only a fraction of those are fanworms, and ur telling me I found some of these guys with my $30 microscope from Amazon?

There's so little about them I can't even find a picture of what I have, much less ID it, without heading into some scientific publishing.

[Video id: Microscope video of clear creature in a translucent red tube on a plant, with multiple tentacles waving outside the tube like a fan. It retracts into the tube instantly as it's spooked, then slowly emerges into a fan again.]

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Glubby in front of my house

(Florida Leatherleaf Slug)

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I'll think I have a pretty good expansive knowledge of zoology and then I'll put a funny looking piece of aquatic grass under a microscope and wait that doesn't look like algae, those are....

????

FANWORMS?? THE FLUFFY THINGS THAT LIVE IN TUBES ON CORAL REEFS AND HYDROTHERMAL VENTS? THEY'RE IN THE LAKE DOWN THE ROAD?

Of the 10,000+ species of polycheates, only like 168 of them live in freshwater and only a fraction of those are fanworms, and ur telling me I found some of these guys with my $30 microscope from Amazon?

There's so little about them I can't even find a picture of what I have, much less ID it, without heading into some scientific publishing.

[Video id: Microscope video of clear creature in a translucent red tube on a plant, with multiple tentacles waving outside the tube like a fan. It retracts into the tube instantly as it's spooked, then slowly emerges into a fan again.]

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12:13 a.m. and I am hunched over a digital microscope on my bed watching a copepod breathe

[Video id: Microscope video of a copepod with the translucent inner workings visible, slowly pulsing. It zooms away after a few moments.]

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My son... He is very handsome

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Gave my pet dust specks a piece of cucumber for the first time and I think they like it.

I have no idea if there are multiple species of ostracod in there or if some are just juveniles? I see little brownish ones and big green ones. Maybe I'll get the microscope out to attempt identifying them sometime.

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Little snowballs