Forget about life in the undergrowth. Go down even further to the leaf litter and you'll find a whole world of living things all busy either recycling all that organic matter or else preying upon one another. I recently sifted through just a few handfuls of leaf litter. The photos below show a small sample of what it contained.
First up is a small larva which I assume belongs to the Diptera ( a fly maggot if you wish).
First up is a small larva which I assume belongs to the Diptera ( a fly maggot if you wish).
(Click images to enlarge)
Fly larva - just a few mm long. Anyone who has picked up seaweed on the strand line has probably seen hoards of little jumping creatures know as Sandhoppers. Their cousins who inhabit forest leaf litter are sometimes called Landhoppers. The one in the photographs belong to the family Talitridae which are a type of amphipod crustacean.
Edit: I had erroneously named this landhopper Talitrus sp. until seeing Bob Mesibov's comments below. The paper referred to says all 15 Tasmanian landhoppers belong to the family Talitridae. Those which were once placed in Orchestia and Telitrus have long since been moved into new genera. Only one of Tasmanias landhoppers is also found on the mainland.
A Landhopper - family Talitridae(possibly Keratroides vulgaris)
The most obvious creatures among the litter were the millipedes. Some of those below are only around 10 mm is length. I had a go at trying to ID some of them but for now have put them on my "To Do" list..
Millipede A
Millipede B
Millipede C
Millipede D
Millipede E
A small beetle of about 3 - 4 mm in length.
An intoduced slug - Deroceras sp, probably D. panormitanum(See Kevin Bonham's comments below)
Aside from the above, there were numerous tiny spiders which I did not manage to photograph very well, the native snail which I posted recently, and countless other organisms too small for me to photograph.
