Shadow of a water strider on the surface of the water.

The other day, I visited a park.

Near Nijo Castle, a World Heritage Site, there is a moderately large park called Nijo Park. There is a spring in the park and the water was flowing, and many water striders were swimming there.

If you look up the word "water strider" in the Kojien dictionary, you will find...

A general name for insects of the family Ameniphidae of the order Ameniphilidae. The body is long and slender, rod-shaped, 5 to 30 mm long. They have long, hairy legs and glide on the water, feeding on small insects. They emit a candy-like odor. The species is said to be a "candy-like" species. I had no idea that they emit a candy-like odor. Is that why they are called water striders?

It's exciting to see how much there is in the world that we don't know.

Now, as I stared at the water strider, my eyes were drawn to the shadow. No matter how I looked at it, it just had long, slender legs, but the shadow was round.All the water striders had the same shadow. If you find a water strider, please take a look at it.

Incidentally, when I looked up the round shadow of the water strider on the Internet, I found that it is because light is refracted into the concavity in the water surface created by its legs. In short, I believe that the concavity of the water strider's legs on the surface of the water creates the round shadow. I don't know much about this as a humanities student, so if you want to know, please look it up yourself.

It was a day when I realized that there are many different worlds.

My small world is full of small, big, and interesting things.You are the one in the well, and you don't know the ocean.That's what I was talking about.