Fascinating!! Thanks for sharing :)

An individual zooid cannot survive on its own because they specialize in one function, so they rely on each other to form a “body.”

Really adds another layer in between cells, organs and organism. Is it a colony? Or is it a single organism?

ETA: if anyone wants to see nice videos of them, ev nautilus has some good shots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KZsrDGLUJQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeflgYWxyVI

Aww nice! Did you upload it to iNat?

Wow, incredible!

Wow, this sounds so cool!!! I made a faux black tea the other day using Chamaenerion angustifolium (I fermented it a bit as well). But it didn’t really come close to real tea for me. Maybe I’ll add something fragrant like you did to enhance the flavor a bit :)

What a nice post, thanks for sharing :)

Haven’t heard of the new jersey tea plant before (I’m European) but it sounds so cool! Do you use it for anything in particular? Like making tea?

Ooh nice, would be nice if you could report back if you find anything :)

Wow, so cool!!

I just read in this fantastic book that many of the spiders “hiding” in flowers are actually brightly UV colored and even attract pollinators by giving the flower some extra shine. It may often seem to us like they blend in (because we cannot see UV light) but they might do something entirely different!

Also that the strawberry is turned up instead of hanging down is another indication of a mock strawberry.

But in any case they should be edible (please correct me if I’m wrong!) :)

Depending on where you live and how dangerous the mosquitoes are, there is a tradeoff with also unnecessarily killing many other flying insects. On top of that, mosquitoes are an important food source to other animals and they are also pollinators. So I’d only go with this solution if the mosquitoes in your area spread diseases.