Pond Life - Little and Large

First the little. Some Ostracods I found near the edge of my raised pond. They are large enough to be seen as tiny brown dots moving around in the water. These crustaceans live in a hard shell which is in two parts. In the second clip, top creature, you might just see the thin opening when it moves about. This shell closes when it senses danger. The video was made under a 3.5X objective lens on my microscope.



For the large - what could be more beautiful than ..



.... a water lily.