Gardening is great, but I’m terrible – I spent a half hour photographing the millipedes that were churning up in the soil. This little guy is Oxidus gracilis. It’s tiny- about the length of the first digit of a finger.
When I’m asked to talk about the best part of my job, I would say it’s exactly this kind of situation. Before getting to know Dr. Sierwald and learning about her love for millipedes, I wouldn’t have stopped for a second to get a closer look. Seeing something I now recognize and appreciate for its complexity is like having a new friend; a familiar face in a foreign world. You really do learn to appreciate the little things. The…. very little things.
I was just having a conversation with an artist friend about this and why I love and appreciate working where I do. It’s as though science has opened up my eyes the world, literally. And my eyes aren’t even like the researchers who do macro/microscopic research. But on the most basic level, you just see more!
drawing by me on my tablet thing
A magical thing happens when you realize ^ becomes
images from google search of idol mantis on the left (Idolomantis diabolica) and violin mantis (Gongylus gongylodes) on the right
And so just imagine this experience with geology, or space or anything and everything around you. Imagine the intense experience that Ernst Haeckel had with radiolaria or Wilson A. Bentley had with snowflakes. The world becomes so much richer! You can see the differences in everything, and you can give it a name to appreciate it again later. Science: widening your visual vocabulary one organism (or mineral, or virus, or anything for that matter) at a time!
