Are there monsters alive today? There sure are! We may not recognize them as monsters or even realize that they exist, but they are there. They lurk in drops of water, grains of dust and even in our food. Some have little wiggly legs that propel them through water while others may look more crab like and fearsome. In water one way to get a look at these creatures is to cut one leg off of a nylon panty hose then cut off the toe and attach a small plastic jar or bottle with a good heavy rubber band. At the top of the leg you can use a wire hanger to keep it open and form a handle. When you drag this through the water, the microscopic animals will collect in the bottle while the water rushes out of the sides. Now you can look at these animals with a small microscope. You will be surprised at what you find. Scientists are discovering that these creatures are amazingly Hardy. Some microbes have survived for hundreds of thousands of years sealed in stones and who knows maybe even longer. Some microbes are so strong that they can survive being irradiated and indeed a species knows as Deinococcus was found in a can of irradiated meat in the 1950s .

A Euglenid floats around in a drop of water. As it swims, it begins to split long ways. It almost looks like a colorful string bean. This splitting process is the way the creature reproduces. The Paramecium aurella is a species of Paramecium. It is one of the smallest. Its body is transparent and is studded with crystal structures. These are the waste products. Its cilla are constantly moving. Paramecium eat bacteria. One has to wonder how a creature like this can be alive? Like something out of a horror movie the Stentors seem to be creatures the shape of cobras. While they don't actually have a head, they do have a body that seems to indicate a head. They are protozoan but are so large, that they are visible without a microscope being up to 3mm in length. These animals, if I may use this phrase loosely, have a food cavity that resembles a mouth making them even more fierce looking. Our old friend the Amoeba looks like some sort of living island on a relief map. It will come upon a smaller creature and completely engulf it. The trapped creature will then be slowly digested.

Biepharisma is a transparent animal as is the many of these life forms. It has very powerful, for its size, cirri that are like hairs that create waves drawing in unsuspecting tiny creatures for dinner. The Peranema is a Euglenids eater. It is a creature with the equivalent of a tail, called a flagellum. It can use this powerful appendage to quickly change direction. If is wants, it can use the tail to propel it through the water.

Rotifers are strange looking creatures that, in a weird way, resemble a shank of beef. They have a shell and are multicelled animals. They propel themselves using cilla. They have a foot that can attach to something using a stickey material that they can secrete. The wind carries their spores and because of this you can find these creatures in the smallest amount of water anywhere. There might be some living right now in the drain pipe of your roof. Did you know that there are microscopic worms? One type is Oligochaetes. They are segmented worms. These worms are 'hairy' have many bristles on their bodies that are operated by their muscles. Since these worm are transparent one can observe how their anatomy works. But these aren't the only types of worms, there are many different kinds. Another type of tiny worm is the Nematode, also known as the roundworm. They are not only found in water but in the soil. They become fully developed in under 4 days. But the worst looking worm of them all is the flatworm known as Rhynchomesostoma Rostratum. They have one or more pairs of very simple eyes. The mouth is under the creature and is located at the center of the body most of the time. Some type of flatworms are parasitic and live inside other animals.

One has only to look at a hydra to see the monster in our midst. This creature is related to the jellyfish. There are long tentacles that make this animal very fearsome. The Hydra can eat a water flea. The Hydra's tentacles are equipped with stinging cells that paralyze its prey. Its lucky for us that it is very tiny because it is found everywhere.

Some people are very surprised to find out that there are also microscopic Crustaceans, they think of only crabs or maybe lobsters when they hear that word. But there are tiny transparent Crustaceans too. The three major groups of fresh water Crustaceans are the water flea, copepods and the ostacods. Water fleas can grow to be quite big, relatively speaking. They sometimes reach the size of 6 mm. They use their large antennae to propel themselves. They have large eyes An Ostracod is a shelled animal with tails sticking out the back. It can draw itself entirely inside the shell for protection. Copepods are the most numerous animals on earth. This tiny creature is a major food source for the giant whales and other fish and lives in both fresh and salt water. It is a beautiful animal that looks like a pineapple with appendages.

There are many more types of miniature animals out there. We live in a very exciting world that is teaming with life. It would be hard to believe that live which is so numerous here didn't exist somewhere else.