It is the perfect place to hide in plain sight like this Goatweed Leafwing often does!
Scooting aside the top layer and often you will find fungus. This component is one of the decomposers of litter.
Fiery Searcher or Caterpillar Hunter (Calosoma scrutator) took advantage of the litter to escape from my view.
The other night we watched Ben Pfeiffer give a presentation on fireflies. He said that some species of firefly larvae can be found at the base of cedars. So of course I went looking. Here I found a larva. Is it a firefly larvae? It doesn’t look exactly like the larva in Ben’s presentation. So no idea. 🙂
Pushing back more litter a centipede was in a ball. Moments later with all its little legs they thundered off. At least I imagined all those little feet making noise. LOL.
A common resident in leaf litter, the roly poly bug or pill bug.
Finally the leaf litter of the future! It can take up to two or more years for oak leaves to decompose.
Lots of life forms from macro to microscopic use the leaf litter for their homes. What’s in your leaf litter?
That baby hummer mimicking a caterpillar sure is cute. Never seen that before.
Great leaf litter article – ties in well with that one about the millipedes coming out at night for amorous adventures!