https://www.photomacrography.net/forum ... hp?t=40576
I have a less dramatic tale. I have been growing some hostas from seed in a tiny terrarium in my basement. The terrarium has glass sides that allowed me to photograph the seeds from the side (subsurface) as they germinate. The goal was to make a time lapse video of the germination.
Things were going well. Some seeds that were in-frame germinated. The video of the germination was less interesting than I had hoped (root hair not visible) , but some tiny flies discovered the moist soil and laid eggs. The larva are interesting to watch. I believe they are some sort of fungus eating fly. The fly larva get bigger then disappear. I presume they pupate and emerge as adults. Then the fly life cycle starts over. Meanwhile the sprouts on the surface were growing. In the photo below they emerge from the cardboard mask above the terrarium.
Before leaving.
I built an automated watering system to tend things while I traveled, and departed on vacation in mid October with great expectations of interesting time lapse footage when I returned. The water valve opens for 12 seconds each day and flow is divided between the tiny terrarium (right side) and a larger seed starter tray (left) The larger tray is not pictured.
Watering system with solenoid valve controlled by timer.
The watering system worked well, but several days after I left mice apparently discovered the very moist trough and dug up the terrarium. Not sure if they were after water, roots or larva. All the sprouts were dug up, the top 6mm of soil was scattered, and the roots were gone. I scraped the desiccated tops of the hosta sprouts and some of the dirt back into the terrarium. What a bummer!
Mouse mischief aftermath. This shows things after I scraped a bit of the debris back into the terrarium.
Since there were still a bunch of larva crawling about (in the time lapse) I decided to keep things rolling
The fall mouse invasion happens most years. I leave traps on the basement floor year round and had three fragrant customers in my 6 traps when I returned. I added four more traps and refreshed the bait on all of them. No fresh customers so far.
Here is the time lapse covering my vacation time. The disturbance by the mouse (mice?) happens at time 32 seconds.
https://youtu.be/4P6cCT_vdfM