Ptenothrix

This is my personal project and learning journey about trying to find, observe, identify, and eventually describe springtails on Vancouver Island, and wherever else I may travel to find more.

This all started with macro photography, and trying to figure out what I was seeing. As I saw more, I eventually saw that there were a lot of things that could not be IDed without a microscope, and there were also many things that could not be IDed at all because they had not been scientifically described.

After getting a microscope and starting to learn the various procedures for investigation and ID, I saw that there were not a lot of howtos for an amateur to get into this, and a lot of the knowledge was either paywalled, or sort of tucked away in academia, and you learned it from word of mouth from your professor if you were a PhD student, etc.

My goals here are to spread some of things I learn along the way, whether it’s about IDs, or taxonomy, or practical microscopy. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!