Went to go tuck in my new mantis photos in their proper folder, all cozy for the night, and ran across that time a mantis we caught and kept a couple of days gave me an exoskeleton, and I put it under my microscope.

Bug - larvae in a water drop Show more

I made a microscope video for my kid :). She's 6, it's about life in a drop of water and shows a bladderwort trap. It's on Youtube, I embedded it in my blog to not use bandwith and space for it here.

tippitiwichet.com/2022/12/13/a

Today I got cover glass and indented slides, making it MUCH easier to focus my highest magnification, I'm thrilled :). Apparently, if you try to use another slide as a cover slide, it's too thick to focus through, and otherwise I kept crashing into my subject. The first image is a composite of the best shots I could get of the structure of sphagnum moss. The second is from today, I can even finally clearly see chloroplasts!

Sphagnum moss has no roots. Instead, it's leaves can soak up water like a sponge with its open cell structure.

Today's Venus flytrap has red pigmentation, for cooler looking slides. The two of the same angle are lit from above and below, and together show quite well how the world is made of stained glass.

So, I did what I do and took my repeating tile of Venus Flytrap cells and recolored it in vivid and unrealistic ways. Those can all be desktop wallpaper, if you feel so inclined, or let me know if you kind of want it on some Redbubble stuff, I can totally provide that for you.

Drew a repeating tile using old school methods, like the crone I am. Venus flytrap digestive glands from inside the trap, on a leaf with no pigment. That's my desktop wallpaper now.

This morning my lovely mantis was kind enough to gift me an exoskeleton. I was going to be good this morning and keep it in the box so I had time to work on my art, but nooooo. That is the edge of the eye, the thorns on a front leg, and a leg joint. Wet mounting both brought out pretty colors and made bubbles that actually decorate it rather well.

Venus flytrap trigger hair. The dark clusters of cells are digestive glands. My newbie butt is proud of this one. I guarantee you my other slides did not look this good.

Gemma Sarracenia

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