We have a little water feature in our back yard which trickles over a small series of rocks before being cycled back to the top. It’s a source of a soothing background noise (babbling brook) when we are out in the porch plus it’s a magnet for bathing birds.
I’ve noticed a troubling development while cleaning this apparatus though. Great numbers of a tiny, crawling, swimming critter are unearthed every time IÂ move some rocks. They look like they belong in a B-movie.
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Not knowing exactly what they were I turned to an entomologist friend of mine. Although the beast in question is not an insect (entomology is the study of insects) he knew exactly what they were: water mites. Apparently they are harmless so I have little to concern myself with in the way of home invasions, epidemics, exotic diseases or any other calamity conjured up in my rather imaginative brain.
