Forget about David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth. Go down even further to the leaf litter and you can explore an entire hidden world of living things. A profusion of life, all busy either recycling all that organic matter or else preying upon one another. I sifted through just two or three handfuls of leaf litter. The photos below show only a small sample of what it contained as many of the life forms were too small for me to photograph..
First up is a small larva which I assume belongs to the Diptera ( a fly maggot if you wish).
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#1. Fly larva – just a few mm long
Anyone who has picked up seaweed on the strand line has probably seen hoards of little jumping creatures know as Sandhoppers. Their cousins who inhabit forest leaf litter are sometimes called Landhoppers. The one in the photographs belong to the family Talitridae which are a type of amphipod crustacean (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Talitridae). In fact all 15 Tasmanian landhoppers belong to the family Talitridae. Most are endemic with only one that is also found on the mainland.
#2. A Landhopper - Most likley Keratroides vulgaris
The most obvious creatures among the litter were the millipedes. These are Arthropods of the class, Diplopoda. Some of those below are very tiny at around 10 mm is length. I had a go at trying to identify some of them but it proved rather difficult. I will get around to it one day. A good resource for this, if you happen to be in Tasmania, is the Tasmanian Multipedes Website.
#3. Millipede A.
#4. Millipede B.
#5. Millipede C.
#6. Millipede D.
#7. Millipede E.
I only found one tiny beetle of about 3 or 4mm in length. I'm sure that if I sampled more than a few handfuls of leaf litter that beetles would be quite prevalent.
#8. A small beetle of about 3 – 4 mm in length..
Next up is a native land snail,Stenacapha hamiltoni. These molluscs feed on fungi.
#9. A native snail,Stenacapha hamiltoni
The next one, another mollusc, is an introduced slug. This one was identified by a local malacologist as most likely being a pale coloured Deroceras panormitanum. He also reminded me that introduced snails and slugs are under studied and that there are likely to be many more species present than we are currently aware off.
#8. An introduced slug, probably 310. Deroceras panormitanum
Aside from the above, there were numerous very tiny spiders which I did not manage to photograph very well and no doubt a plethora of microscopic life forms. It's amazing the amount of life that exists beneath our every step.
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