Miniature marvels

After the grandiose scale of the beauty in the Alps today's blip from the long journey home comes from the other end of the spectrum.
Long term followers will know there's much to get IttH excited in this shot, though too little time to really appreciate it.

The rock is granite, though not the wonderful golden variety from up high in Chamonix so prized by climbers.
The lichen is old, one of the primary building blocks of life on our planet, worthy of so much more attention than most ever give it.
And the Arachnid is one of the truly old creatures of the earth, an Opilione*. Whilst in the same family as spiders they are in fact more closely related to Scorpions, but they predate both. Near perfect fossilised example have been found from 400m BC, test show many species have not significantly altered in over 165m years, creatures that looked exactly like this were old when the dinosaurs first evolved, they continue today.

The world is a magical place when we take the time to look.

*I tentatively think this is a female Mitopus morio.