Anyone into Identifying bugs....... in the compost/Worm Bins piles?

Any amateur/ pro entomologist's floating out there amongst yah?

I have some Do-Sort of Nothing raised bed compost piles going on [2'Wx3'Hx10'L] and the have turned into impromptu worm bins. Love this worm poop. But I have so many other critters and now I am going to blow my mind figuring out what each one does.....
Beetles, ants, slugs, spyders, flies, worms, catepillars, it is Teeming!

I read that slugs do a similar function as red worms and may provide a whole host of other nutrients just like an alternative vermicompost.

How can I identify worms. Anyone have a region specific guide?

there are about 4400 different species of earthworms. and they fall into three main types. i found this interesting read on the net...http://www.worms4earth.com/aboutworms.php

My worm bin has had some fucking crazy life in there until some ants thought itd be smart to get to them. I really like ants though so i wasnt too bothered. I kinda respect them.

KLITE said:

My worm bin has had some fucking crazy life in there until some ants thought itd be smart to get to them. I really like ants though so i wasnt too bothered. I kinda respect them.

Click to expand...

myrmecologist....person who studies ants, they are crazy creatures for sure. I have no qualms with them whatsoever, but recently they have been driving me crazy in the house, which would make me a terrible Buddhist, which sucks.

But yeah, living soil, been watching this Jeff Lowenfels video on youtube if anyone is interested, got a few gears going in the grey matter. Basically a lecture from his book, Teeming w/Microbes ......but a few, new things too

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jeff+lowenfels

1st Video!

3rd video surprisingly is another person I am reading bout Masanobu Fukuoka - Do Nothing

That's the only bummer about Jeff, he doesn't go into insects in the soil all that much, just mainly their interactions, with microlife or microbiology only.

Hey not 100% sure, but ants use aphids then eat the aphids. So although ants arnt bad, they can bring problems with them. I fought a battle with them in my last years corn batch, at first i thought it was cool seeing ants, but then i started noticing aphids, and sure enough read a article somewhere saying ants put the aphids there. Will try to find article

To be clear, I haven't seen any ants around any of my food crops outside. They were only under the top few layers of shredded newspaper in the bins, but I am aware of "aphid-herding"

Here is something interesting I found about them being symbiotic to each other, definitely interesting!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009212548.htm