Weird Critters at 5x

WilliamClark77

I've been slacking for quite some time on any pic posting. I hope time allows for much more in the coming weeks.

Hope yaw find these interesting too. I have no idea what these bugs are. It looked like a bit of fungus or mold on an apple tree we recently planted. Before removing it I wanted to see what it looked like through the mpe. I bumped it with the flash setting up and tore a bit off the top layer. To my surprise it was full of.... these.

At 1x with a key for size reference.





At 5x AND cropped about 60%. These little critters immediately began repairing things.





They were rearranging what I am guessing are larvae of some sort. There was a lot of activity. I attempted to get shots to stack but too much movement, hence the shallow dof and less than great pics. These are at 4.5-5x









There appeared to be eggs floating in there too. I don't know this for sure. At 5x cropped about 50%





Anyone know what these are? I plan to attempt a video of them in action soon.

Lord Vetinari

Interesting series- pretty sure they are woolly aphids - the smaller orange bugs are newly born ones (they bear live young during the spring/summer).
Not sure what the spheres are in the last shot but unlikely to be aphid eggs
Brian v.

WilliamClark77

Wow I was completely wrong. Thank you very much for the informative post.