or, to announce in the Victorian style :
A bagatelle of Halteria
in which a possible avoidance mechanism is observed.
Bruce was kind enough to identify these charming little creatures for me. (so charming that I have elevated them to be my microPet #2, after rotifers @#1
)Such frenetic things, I wondered why they would expend so much energy on the activity, what could be the evolutionary benefit? How to slow them to examine in more detail ?
Then, by chance, I found some trapped in a field of debris. Yes, it turns out that debris can be other than a hindrance upon occasion !
It looks like it may be a flight rather than a fight response to contact with "something else" ?
Humorous aside - One wonders why they have not read up upon Einstein's theory of relativity. They really ought to distinguish between contact with something with zero motion in their frame of reference, from something with a non-zero, positive relative motion !
So here, for your amusement and delectation, a short amateurish movie during which they are photobombed by an even faster smaller critter (can enough be seen to hazard a guess as to what it might have been?) :
https://vimeo.com/446493134
Objective 20x projection to Canon 60D sensor. Group of three in the first minute with a brief slo-mo collision. Then the next 2 minutes are of just one critter, briefly normal speed then a long very slow slo-mo for the rest of it