Bug Delivery

I recently read an article singing the praises of beetles, and saying that they are the most important animals on earth. They do certainly undertake some vital tasks–where would we be without dung beetles?–and many of them are quite beautiful and interesting. There are a lot of them, too, millions of species, scientists speculate, and if you were to put all of the beetles in the world on one side of a balance, and all of the people on the other side, supposedly the balance would tip in favor of the beetles. I quite like Coleoptera (aka beetles), but they're not all 100% beneficial to our human lifestyle.

Case in point, today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Carpet beetle, delivered to me with my newspaper. Here you see it reading the Miss Manners column, no doubt concerned with the proper placement of the spoon at the breakfast table, for eating soft-boiled eggs (Yes, that's what it was about). I should probably not make this the Backyard Bug of the Day, because it is a pest, but I am anyway, for reasons of aesthetics, and because it amuses me to open my newspaper and find a bug crawling around in it. I put it outside after taking its picture, though, because I am not keen on bugs that eat things like rugs and upholstery, as carpet beetles do.

The weather didn't look promising for a bug walk, but I did one anyway, and here's what I found:

Two springtails on a tiny puddle.