|
Post by johnw on Nov 27, 2018 0:19:29 GMT -5
Baby praying mantises are darling. Had s bunch hatch on my workbench. Good company for a few minutes. Had to move them outside. Egg cases are interesting. Don’t much care for the adults! Hope you day gets better. Yep, and thanks again Pat, I needed the encouragement. I am now back in Big Crazy land and am feeling much better for it. May I offer you one of Big Crazy's Pastry's? Mixed nuts and date filling with sliced apples and oranges, topped with icing sugar and red currants. Yummy. I gotta run, the frogs at the Zoo heard you talk about your praying mantis eggs and are howling, ... err, well croaking. Well, I think I got my humor back. Cheers, johnw
|
|
|
Post by fernwood on Nov 27, 2018 4:25:59 GMT -5
Would love a few Bali Balls if you are wanting to share some.
|
|
|
Post by miket on Nov 27, 2018 10:48:03 GMT -5
Wonder if they would look similar to this if sliced open? Probably have a lot more going on. Hi fernwood, what are these, sorry to say I don't have a clue. I am guessing spores? I managed to find the piece that looked it was cut in half, the side without the bumps is interesting to say the least. Your opinion? This is the back, no bumps. Front. Just as a side note, this exercise in sand imagery came at an enormous cost to me, in time and grief. The Dino-Lite Digital Microscope "stole" (aka) uploaded, without my permission, five years of photos and then lost them. I spent all yesterday with Apple and three hours today with Dino-Lite trying to get them found and restored. The good news is Dino-Lite managed to restore over 5000 images. The bad news is all my pictures since September of last year are gone permanently. Birthdays, Christmas, Anniversary, Vacation in Korea and all the other things we do and record in pictures, gone, so you can guess how pissed I am. My advice to anyone considering getting a hand help digital microscope stay far away from Dino-Lite Digital Microscope.
Oh, and this is the straw that broke my back, the Dino-Lite program screwed up my photos file on my iMac and I could not upload pictures to Flickr. That process took another hour to resolve BUT, and this is the butt kicker, it tripled all the files I had in photo and downloaded 15,000 extra images that I will now have to delete. The good news is I can now communicate with Flickr and upload pictures to RTH. So that all said, I am sure you can appreciate why I am not going to foray any further into sand imagery. Cheers, johnw. I feel your pain. A few years ago a ransom virus encrypted pictures on our computer and they wanted money to get them back. Course I didn't pay, lost just about all of the pictures/movies of the kids when they were little that were on the computer. I worked for hours and recovered a small percentage, even contacted companies that recover data for a living- but to no avail. I now have a hard drive full of encrypted photos that I will probably never be able to open. However, I did learn my lesson and back things up now.
|
|
|
Post by johnw on Nov 27, 2018 11:01:21 GMT -5
Would love a few Bali Balls if you are wanting to share some. Hi fernwood, I have had these Bali Balls since the early nineties and have maybe a tablespoon worth in a plastic bag, so not much, but I can share a few with you. Please send me a PM so I know where to send them. Would you like them one at a time, they are kinda heavy? I must warn you however, don't sneeze otherwise, it's all over. When I was laying them out against the ruler, I sneezed and about 50 of them went into my carpet. So, when you look at them make sure you have them on a curved surface like a small bowl because these sand critters roll fast and are skittish, meaning, they jump around easily when touched........ Just sharing my experiences of the other day with you. Yep, I am feeling much better than after yesterday's nightmare. Cheers, johnw
|
|
|
Post by fernwood on Nov 27, 2018 16:36:41 GMT -5
PM sent
|
|
|
Post by fernwood on Nov 27, 2018 16:51:59 GMT -5
Have you considered getting some of the specimen jars with magnification lids?
|
|
|
Post by johnw on Nov 27, 2018 19:36:41 GMT -5
Have you considered getting some of the specimen jars with magnification lids? Have replied to your PM. No, I have not given that concept any though because I never knew they existed. I will look into it. But ,on the other hand, with the exception of the notorious Bali Balls and a few bags of sand, the Big Crazy Lace specimens I have are generally in the region of being 6"long x 3-4" wide x 5" high and generally weigh in at between 5-10 pounds so its kinda doubtful I can get specimen jars for these. Cheers, johnw
|
|
|
Post by fernwood on Nov 29, 2018 4:48:50 GMT -5
I was referring to the sand. The Crazy Lace shouldn't roll around on the floor and disappear.
|
|
|
Post by Bluesky78987 on Dec 2, 2018 11:12:42 GMT -5
Hey johnw . . . probably doesn't apply to your popcorn ball sand, but I learned from a biologist that a lot of the white sand on some tropical beaches is made when certain fish (parrotfish, for one) chomp up the coral, digest the coral critters themselves and poop out the calcium carbonate houses the coral has built. If you've ever snorkled with them, there is a frequent stream of white sandy plume from the hind ends of parrot fish, so I think it's true. They definitely do eat coral, and a lot of it has to go out the other end. But I would think that would produce sharp angular pieces - they don't have molars for chewing, just "beak" type mouths for biting it off.
|
|
|
Post by johnw on Dec 2, 2018 11:54:17 GMT -5
Hey johnw . . . probably doesn't apply to your popcorn ball sand, but I learned from a biologist that a lot of the white sand on some tropical beaches is made when certain fish (parrotfish, for one) chomp up the coral, digest the coral critters themselves and poop out the calcium carbonate houses the coral has built. If you've ever snorkled with them, there is a frequent stream of white sandy plume from the hind ends of parrot fish, so I think it's true. They definitely do eat coral, and a lot of it has to go out the other end. But I would think that would produce sharp angular pieces - they don't have molars for chewing, just "beak" type mouths for biting it off. You mean I may have kept fish poop in a jar for all that time? I'm gonna go with calcified spores if you don't mind. The concept of me rolling fish poop balls around in my hand just doesn't quite fit. Cheers, johnw
|
|
|
Post by johnw on Dec 2, 2018 12:00:47 GMT -5
I was referring to the sand. The Crazy Lace shouldn't roll around on the floor and disappear. fernwood, I know, I was making a joke. BUT, that said, lace does get to roll around and around and if kept long enough in the tumbler will turn to sludge and disappear. Cheers, johnw
|
|
|
Post by fernwood on Dec 3, 2018 6:32:18 GMT -5
Since I am OCD with any new materials, had to check these Bali Balls out. Here is some of what I discovered: www.sandatlas.org/rounded-star-sand/www.mccrone.com/mm/star-sand-foraminifera/The second link contains many macro photos. Enjoy. I am still trying to determine exactly what they are. More recent research papers say that finding the star formations now is pretty rare. They are mostly rounded spheres with no stars contained.
|
|