Minor note

 I've updated the "finally found Xanthoria" post below with a photo of the park so you can get the aesthetic vibes of the place. Also, the xan-culturing experiment has stalled again due to unexpected financial difficulties.

Cotinis mutabilis macros (plus a springtail)

Now that I finally have a macro cam I shall never be low on footage for any entomology outreach projects I decide to resume! Not that that's happening any time soon (am too depressed and honestly don't even like bugs that much any more).  Here is a C. mutabilis specimen I rescued (not from plastic entanglement this time; the trees near that plastic net from last year are now so large the beetles avoid flying into the latter) and released. Also, note the mites "inside" its face.

What else can I say? They look just the same as any other Cotinis pictures online so it's not very exciting for me. Here's a video anyways I guess.

Oh, also, here's the springtail (Lepidocyrtus).

Two of my plant cups are respectively infested with Lepidocyrtus and "springlesstails" (generic white Onychiurinae); you may have seen the onychiurines in the background of my iridescent gametophyte photos. They evidently hitchhiked in with the soil because the USDA is crap at its job and almost every soil bag I open is filled with mites, collembolans, and/or mushrooms. Who knows how many nonnative ones have established in the US by now? I'm not going to post my onychiurine and soil mite macros here though, it's not worth my time.

I also must say that despite their ability to keep the soil clean I'm going to try my best to make at least one microarthropod-free subculture for each of my plant taxa. The smaller mites are especially problematic as they may eat my lichens and act as unwanted dispersal agents for all my small-propaguled cryptogams (the animals easily crawl through gaps in the clingfilm and could cross-contaminate my cultures or, worse, spread my nonnative species from indoors to outdoors). Besides, microanimals in general fertilize the soil, which is not good if one wants to grow oligotrophs. Aaaaaaand I plan to acquire a lot of oligotrophic plants.

Admittedly I do feel bad about actively killing the bugs; guess I'll just avoid promoting their population growth as much as I can.