Zel Cariad

BEHOLD! One of Earth's greatest lineages of life: the lil wiggle arm guys, Meteora.

These single-celled critters, originally found in deep-sea sediments, are SO DIFFERENT from other lifeforms on Earth that they're likely in their own kingdom (as in, the Animal Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom etc). 🧪🌿

ミドリトビムシと思うやつが落ち葉の表面をカリカリと食べておられるなと撮っていたら、おや？っと右側にちびっ子ダニが…
ちょこちょこ歩いていてとても良い。トビムシが巨大な存在に見える大きさ(おそらく0.2mmくらい)
頑張って生きておられる。

worm-children dream within their pods, awaiting the first sweet mouthful of soil

I see #Crustmas seems to be a thing, and people are sharing Ostracod photos!? I don't need an excuse to share photos of my Favourite crustacean!
Or better yet, here's a video!
#BugSky #invert #PondLife

A photograph of the head end of a velvet worm, a soft-bodied invertebrate covered in beautiful orange and blue patterns.

Last weekend I got to see NZ velvet worms in their native forest habitat. These animals are so bizarre, taxonomists gave them their very own Phylum, next to tardigrades - that's insane!

This Ooperipatellus sp. is an egg-laying genus, but there's another here that gives live birth!

Mind. Blown. 🧪

six digital drawings of a pauropod, a loaf-shaped animal with no eyes, many short legs, and five tan colored segments

photo of a pauropod, which has no eyes and branched antennae. in the corner is the watermark: Stewart Bevan 2018

it's everyone's favorite animal, pauropod
you love pauropod

Folded up forelegs on a butterfly

Folded up forelegs on a butterfly

Folded up forelegs on a butterfly

Folded up forelegs on a butterfly

You know what's weird? A whole lot of butterflies look like they only have four legs, because their front pair is all small and folded up against their body. Some don't have feet, some have fuzz, some taste stuff with them.

Weird little legs!

a little whitish brown translucent millipede sits in a hollow made of compacted fecal pellets. right next to it in a similar chamber, another millipede of the same species sits curled up and obscured behind a veil of gauzy silk

did you know millipedes produce silk? those that do, like this species in the order Chordeumatida, use it to make secure shelters for molting.

a collage of 9 brightly colored leafhoppers. most have a white base with various shades of red, yellow, orange, and bluish-black creating distinct patterns

look at these little things!! who knew that the weedy vines and little saplings all over hid these gems. this is just two nights’ looking at leaves for about an hour total, got me nine species

complex crab anatomy guide, covering the basic parts of the arms, legs, body shape, and tail.

complex bivalve anatomy guide covering the basic jargons of the anatomy, the shape, shell margin, and ribbed texture called sculpture.

complex crinoid anatomy guide focusing on the different jargons used to describe their body parts like the stalk, calyx, and arms

complex cephalopod anatomy guide primarily concerning the basic anatomy, eye shape, and how some of them are shelled while most are naked

Don't have an invertebrate artwork to post for #InverteFest?

I got you covered. I teamed up with multiple experts to create guides to comprehend various invertebrate anatomy.

Links to the full posts in the reply below.

A photograph of a large, blue soft-bodied springtail, covered in purple and yellow spines.

Hey, wanna see SOMETHING NOBODY HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE?

Here's a giant springtail with PURPLE spines!

I recently discovered a number of these amazingly coloured Holacanthella (they're normally red/orange or yellow).

A new species? Maybe! 🧪

Observation online soon: weta.ento.org.nz/index.php/we...

a translucent comma-shaped little shrimplike creature, with four pairs of little fluffy limbs, a long point tail, red dot eyes

a weird little lobster-shaped crustacean, with long front arms ending in pincers

out here finding the weirdest little guys I never knew existed. what even is a leptostracan or a tanaid

The Virginia Rail’s greatest predators are hawks and bowling balls

A photograph of a yellow and brown patterned springtail standing on the surface of an amber-coloured leaf.

Do you love Springtail Saturday, but feel it's always over too soon?

Dry your eyes, my friend.

They said it couldn't be done.

They said that dedicating more than one day a week to springtails was impossible, merely the arrogant pipe-dream of a madman.

But, guess what?

It's #SpringtailSunday 🧪

several ostracods under microscope. They are various sizes and shaped vaguely like peaches

these are Elpidium, ostracods (seed shrimp!) which only live in the water that collects between the leaves of bromeliad plants. that's it. to reach new plants, they stick themselves onto other animals, including frogs, and ride around passively.

water flea under microscope, totally brown,, just looks like a ball of lint with an eye

There's a water flea called Ilyocryptus which is always covered in lint and dirt. I looked up the etymology of the name and it translates literally into "dirt secret". Here is my beautiful son Dirt Secret

a closeup of the spider’s leg, pale yellow and hairy, with three of the centipede’s prehensile tarsi wrapped around it

a house centipede hunches over its spider prey

one of my very favorite arthropod appendages, the house centipede’s legs. the hypersegmented tarsi of these limbs act like tentacles, wrapping firmly around the limbs of prey, immobilizing them a safe distance from the centipede’s body while its venom takes effect

hand holding a transparent plastic container, about 10cm x 7cm

the container is flipped to show that the edge has a rim that curves down, emphasized with a red circle

uncropped photo of the tiny spider sitting in the curve of the container rim

cropped photo showing just the spider and barely enough info of the background to make sense of the scale

I got a question off site asking how big this little friend was. I just realized the crop doesn't show how absolutely tiny it was.

3rd photo is uncropped straight from my camera, it was basically the smallest thing my lens could capture.

fairy shrimp swimming near a small snail

fairy shrimp approaches snail directly

fairy shrimp looking very closely at snail and touching it with antennae

fairy shrimp backs up to continue his examination of snail

It's a bummer I can't upload videos directly on here yet so please enjoy some still images of a fairy shrimp very closely and intentionally examining a snail

A photograph of an orange tear-drop shaped mite with long white legs walking on a decaying log.

What do you do when you REALLY wanted antennae, but life hands you an arachnid body plan? You stretch those front legs of course!

Linopodes mites have front legs up to SIX TIMES their body length, which they use to sense their environment & find fungi to eat. 🧪

#Macrophotography #SoilBiodiversity

A photograph of a pair of white semi-transparent mites walking on silk threads attached to a plant leaf.

A photograph of a white semi-transparent mite walking on silk threads against a black background.

The good thing about being a macrophotographer and soil ecologist, is that I can still find beauty in unusual places - such as when SPIDER MITES are ravaging my houseplants.

Watching these little Tetranychid nightmares traversing their tiny silk tightropes between leaves was oddly entertaining!🧪

A photograph of a group of pink, soft-bodied springtails on the surface of a decaying log.

It's #SpringtailSunday!

Today I saw this pile of adorability - a group of bright pinkie-purple springtails.

Species of Poduromorpha such as these are known to occasionally 'swarm', sometimes on the surface of water and even on snow! They're totally harmless and are important decomposers in soil.🧪

A six-panel comic. In panel 1, two brownish birds are standing on the forest floor, talking. The first bird says to the second. "Hey, do you want to go out sometime?" The second bird replies, "Sorry, no." In panel 2, the second bird continues, "I'm only into large ovals with screaming neon mouths." In panel 3, the first bird says "...What?" while, slowly entering from the right, we see a displaying oval-shaped bird of paradise with a neon yellow mouth and neon green-blue patches, yelling "AAAAA". In panel 4, it continues to advance, "AAAAAAAA", and the female looks intrigued. In panel 5, the bird of paradise slides back out of frame while the female rushes after him. In panel 6, the first bird is alone, and says to itself, "...what"

Mate choice. Another older comic.

"SAGITTARIUS C: Webb looks to the centre of our galaxy, close to where a supermassive black hole exists. This region of space contains tens of thousands of stars, including many that are birthing inside the bright pink feature at centre-left. The cyan colour highlights excited hydrogen gas."

some stunning images from the James Webb telescope's first 2 years selected by BBC News:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

A photograph of a velvet worm on some deadwood. The velvet worm is soft-bodied and made of lots of segments, with bright orange and blue dots all across its body.

A photograph of the underside of a velvet worm, showing it's soft pale purple tummy and many legs ending with soft pale purple pads.

*VELVET WORM CHECKPOINT*

You have reached a scrolling checkpoint. I give you permission to stop, breathe, and simply enjoy how wonderful velvet worms are.

Forget about the world's problems for a moment, and just look at those tiny little feet! There's still beauty in the world.

Okay, off you go.

promotional poster for the exhibition with a colourful illustration by Zel Cariad showing the roots of the Yggdrasil where Níðhöggr, a serpentine, winged dragon gnaws at the roots of the great 'world tree' - there is a complex pattern of entwined coils and roots in mainly red, yellow, and green

Zel Cariad: 'Creatures'

online art exhibition : December 2023

The Signifier : six : shot : gallery

medium.com/the-signifie...

A digitally coloured illustration of a brown horse with three slightly curving horns. He is smiling to reveal his sharp teeth, and is standing in a jaunty pose.

Bucephalus - Alexander the Great's mythical carnivorous three-horned horse!

Learn more here: zelcariad.blogspot.com/2023/11/buce...

A digitally-coloured illustration by Zel Cariad of a purple lion-like creature, with a crocodile's head, and twelve rainbow coloured feathered wings. It is flying in the sky, there are clouds and stars in the background.

Chalkydri are twelve-winged singing angelic croco-lions!

You can read more here: zelcariad.blogspot.com/2023/09/chal...

A digitally coloured picture of a smiling gold dragon on a white background

Hello!
I am an illustrator interested in creatures, both real and mythical