Often all attention is focused on the large, impressive wild animals. But those tiny creatures in the animal kingdom who are just as tireless in shaping habitats in nature and thus creating essential foundations for everyone else are often overlooked. The Heinz Sielmann Foundation has now highlighted several such useful dwarves and honored their services.
Ecosystems only function if each resident does their part: from the large bison that shapes the landscape through its grazing activities to the tiny insect that decomposes dead plant material. But it is precisely these dwarves of the animal kingdom that are often overlooked. “Their role in nature cannot be overestimated,” says Jörg Müller from the Heinz Sielmann Foundation. “It’s worth simply stopping in nature and closely inspecting the surroundings up close.” The foundation has now particularly highlighted some of the useful dwarves that can be seen during such an inspection.
Tiny cleanup crews
One of the tiny creatures that keep ecosystems running in this country is, for example, the spot snail (Punctum pygmaeum). “With a maximum diameter of 1.6 millimeters, it is as small as a dot left by a soft pencil on paper,” explains Müller. This makes it the smallest shell snail in Germany, but by no means less valuable than larger species. Spot snails live in the ground litter and in the rotten wood of numerous forests, where they eat rotting plant material and thus make the nutrients they contain usable for the ecosystem again.
The colorful ball jumper (Dicyrtomina ornata) also does something similar. Despite its maximum size of 1.8 millimeters, this springtail is one of the most important ground personnel in moist forests and makes valuable humus from fungi, lichens and rotting plant material. In winter it stays on tree trunks, where it can be spotted with a little patience thanks to its spherical, purple-yellow abdomen. The dwarf beetle Nephanes titan is also part of the forest clean-up squad. With a maximum height of 0.65 millimeters, it is smaller than a fingernail is thick. But its finely feathered wings are particularly impressive.
Population controllers and pollinators
The so-called water dwarf (Plea minutissima) also provides important services. This bug, which is a maximum of three millimeters small, rows around with its six legs under the surface of numerous bodies of water in Central Europe. She gets her oxygen from a wafer-thin air bubble that surrounds her body. During its dives, the bug hunts, among other things, mosquito larvae. This reduces the number of summer pests and makes life easier for us humans.
Instead of decimating populations, the thistle woolly bee (Pseudoanthidium nanum) ensures that other species continue to exist. The eight millimeter tall pollinator feeds exclusively on the flower nectar and pollen of selected flowering plants such as knapweed and donkey thistles. Otherwise, the solitary mini-bee is quite undemanding: it lays its eggs in hollow or pith-containing plant stems of reeds, blackberries, elderberries and mullein. However, in many places they are viewed as weeds and are removed. The species is now rare in our country and is considered endangered throughout Germany.
Source: Heinz Sielmann Foundation