MICROCOSMOS.nl - questions and answers

WHY THIS SITE?
Because I've got a lot of nice slides and photo's of creatures living in pond and stream and I found it a waste to let them age in dark boxes. I hope that showing them on this site will contribute in keeping people interested in the nature surrounding them. There are quite a lot of scientific pictures of insects on the web, but they often represent dead specimen, to show specific detail. Other pictures show then in a net or jar, or they show all insects out of the water. I try to make my pictures give the impression of the animals in their natural habitat and, with a few exceptions, the animals are alive.

WHY THE NAME MICROCOSMOS?
There's the famous French movie MICROCOSMOS which zooms in on the insect life of a meadow in the Aveyron region. The word Microcosmos is already decades used in connection with microscopic life. When I saw the name of the film I knew I had to use this word for my site. People who have seen the movie will expect something on insects with this name, and so they will find. It's a bit pity that there also sites on computer technique called MICROCOSMOS, they the cosmos (universe) of the micro (-processor) of course.

HOW CAN I FIND OUT WHICH CREATURE I HAVE FOUND?
Click HERE to go to the main index of the picture-gallery's. If you are pretty sure it's a water beetle, you could go directly to one of the beetle pages. (Mind though: some bugs resemble beetles, and beetle-larva don't look like a beetle at all and are difficult to distinguish from the larva of a dragonfly for many people..) If you haven't the faintest idea, you could browse through all the pages with the top-tabs. If you still can't find it, you may e-mail me. A photo of the animal could be helpful. I am NOT a biologist, so sometimes I can't provide the exact name either...

HOW MAY I USE THESE PICTURES?
You may use the picture for your private use freely, look at them, download them, or print them. But for public presentation, either on a beamer, in a magazine, a book, CD or whatever, you MUST ask my permission in advance by e-mail. I am very happy with the fact that the pictures here have already contributed to educational purposes and nature-projects, these initiatives I strongly encourage. I emphasize that my pictures may NOT be placed on a website or linked to it without my permission AND giving respectful credits.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF CF. AND SP. IN THE NAMES UNDER THE PICTURES?
The animals depicted contain the scientific names as much as possible, which are double names in Greek or Latin. The genus name with a capital letter, followed by the species name with a lower case letter. Some species are difficult to identify by specific name. Sometimes I ask for help from experts, but a reliable identification is often not possible from just the photos. If the species name is probable but not certain, the addition cf. (confer) is placed between the two names to indicate that the species name should actually still be verified. If the species name cannot be determined at all, only the genus name with the addition sp. (species) is used. If there is a common English name, it will also be mentioned. If a less common English name exists, I did sometimes mention it between quotation marks.

LARVA OR NYMPH, WHICH IS RIGHT?
In insects with incomplete metamorphosis, the best-known example being bugs, the hatched animal already resembles the adult insect. Then we are talking about a nymph , not a larva. This would also be correct for dragonflies, but I have used the usual designation dragonfly larvae. We also know (for example) salamander larvae, fish larvae, worm larvae and water mite larvae - although these animals do not undergo a complete metamorphosis.

HOW WERE THE PICTURES CREATED?
Most of them with a macro lens (on a bellows attachment sometimes), a reflex camera and a speed light. The slides and negatives I made this way were scanned with a flimscanner. More on this subject is to come on a separate page.

HOW DID YOU MAKE THIS WEBSITE?
In a monk's (monkey's?) way with Notepad and a gallery-generator I wrote in the dark-aged Qbasic... As of late I use HMTL-Kit for the HOME, faq and other pages, which helps somewhat A page for you CSS- and HTML-lovers is still to come....