𝓓𝓪𝔀𝓲𝓭_𝓜𝓪𝓻𝓽𝔂𝓷𝓲𝓾𝓴 𓆨𓆣🇵🇱🇬🇧

!New website is up! I've finally managed to get back to work on my photography website and completed enough of it to publish. Feedback is welcome, I hope you like it : ) dawidmartyniuk.com

Finally a decent photo of a springtail! Springtails are difficult to get in focus because of their size, shape, and they move around a lot.

@MWeites Yep. I already have tarantulas and a scorpion that I feed crickets to, so adding another predator to the mix doesn't require much more maintenance.

@BugBoyDawid What do you feed it? Crickets?

My new Scolopendra Hainanum I bought at the South East Arachnid show yesterday.

It's very hard to get the lighting right when taking photographs of very tiny white animals like this Pauropod (Stylopauropus sp.). This individual shaded its head from the direct light, allowing the head setae to be seen more clearly, without the usual 'glowing' effect.

#これを見た人は黙ってヤスデを貼る

アギトダニの仲間かなと思う大きめのダニがイレコダニを食べてる？と撮影したけど… イレコダニはテコテコとのんびりした足取りでその場を離れて行き、よく見たら食べられていたのは別の小さなダニであった。

Finally back at Uni, so I can play around with my new USB microscope camera from @BrunelMicro Here is a Tick specimen at the lowest magnification setting.

*coast

I didn't manage to find any millipedes or centipedes by the coat recently (maybe because it's so cold), but there were tonnes of woodlice, and even some juvenile Sea Slaters, one of my favourite UK land crustacean.

Plenty of Polydesmus millipedes this season (like every season). With the cold temperatures, their metabolism can slow down, making them stiff and unresponsive until you disturb them too much and they 'wake up' from their winter slumber.

The most lightly coloured Philoscia muscorum woodlouse I've ever seen; I thought it was another species at first since I found it by the coast, but alas, it was a very common species.

Some of the carded Chrysomelid beetles we have in the ITALIC collection at the University of Reading. @ReadingBioSci

I realized that I haven't posted a photo of a Pauropod in a long time, so here is a Pauropus lanceolatus. Photos come out so much better when I take the subject home and set up some good lighting. #macrophotography #ukbiodiversity

Head of a Scolopendrella sp. Symphylan. Being so small and long (3-4mm), it's very difficult to get most of their bodies in focus! I'll try again the next time I find one. #macrophotography #soilbiodiversity #myriapoda

@Pal_zoology a Pauropod. I'd be surprised if you've heard of these before : )

I have this obsession with weird obscure animals I just wanna ask from you all to send me your most beloved random obscure animals, the weirder the better :P

@DrRossPiper It could also encourage more people to look for them, which could increase the amount of people recording species on iRecord/iNaturalist.

@DrRossPiper A good idea would be a 'micro safari' of the diverse and fascinating Mesofauna. This will help open the public's eyes to what creatures exist in the soil and what they really look like, hopefully encouraging people to read more on them and engage with the scientific community.

I'm helping the BBC with a new landmark series on terrestrial invertebrates. If there are any fascinating stories you know of or that you're working on, please get in touch. Pls RT.

It's getting colder now, so there will be fewer insects around, but fortunately I still have quite a large backlog of photos. Here's a crab spider from June with the leg of one of its would-be victims.

Julid millipede from Poland. Likely to be Ophyiulus pilosus, but a male is needed to be sure. Unfortunately, male Julids seem to be much harder to find!

Close up photo of my Orange Baboon Tarantula after I changed her enclosure today (always a stressful procedure!). #OBT #tarantula #macrophotography