Did you intend to include a nice, sharp image or two? Try again, okay?

<--------- dumbass! Here ya go rhizo1, thanks

Woo, I believe that your little critters are a species of springtail, which exist in astonishingly high numbers all over the world.

Thanks Rhizo1. -- could this possibly be the scum that's created inside my rain barrel? A bunch of dead corpses?

why is this an issue in a rain barrel????

i bet if you put standing water under a scope ... you will find all kinds of things living in it ...

clean it out once in a while.. if it scums up ....

ken

woohooman, ken_adrian is right. "TraLeeuwenhoekining his microscopic lens upon the lake water collected in a phial (and later the rain water he mentions in his letter) he discovered what he called his “little animals.”"

That linkage did not work too well. It was supposed to take the reader to this site.

http://www.leben.us/index.php/component/content/article/59-volume-3-issue-4/236-antoni-van-leeuwenhoeks-amazing-little-animalcules

Thanks for that link, Ron.

woohooman, I first read of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in "Microbe Hunters" by Paul De Kruif. I was a student and that book was better than any textbook in one important aspect. The reader is taken back to the time when nothing was known about the subject; and by following the explorations of the pioneers, the ignorant (also) reader follows the steps and missteps ... and learns!

other than being called ignorant.. that book review almost makes me want to read the book ... lol ...

ken