Sheela and I attended a couple of Diversity of Life in America lectures this week in the Twin Creeks Science and Education Center outside Gatlinburg.

We learned about a rare spider that lives only above 5500 feet, in a particular kind of moss covering north facing rocks in spruce-fir forests. Interesting spider, booooring speaker.

Yesterday we heard an interesting speaker (Dr. Ernest Bernard) on the subject of "springtails" which are sort of arachnids (Collembola, to be specific) ... and among the most plentiful life forms on the planet. Who knew? They are tiny, but not microscopic, and we found a bunch of them in the leaf litter on the forest floor. They are EVERYWHERE.

High note: Sheela captured (sucked up in an aspirator) one of the rarest of them all ... only the eighth one ever captured ... and only the third in the Smokies.

Then ... Sheela and I were intereviewed by a photographer who was there doing a segment on the DLIA - Roger Herr, of HiDefSouth. (Sheela would not let me use the photo of her being interviewed.) That's Zora, and Roger behind the camera, and Sheela kibbitzing behind them. We are in front of the Twin Creeks Science and Education Center. It was fun - after all, we got to talk about ourselves!