The sad face...

..of an eternal embrace. This scene I met on my morning walk in the arid zone struck me! I made stories in my head about what happened as I think many will do and then my thoughts wandered to the decomposition of insects so I'll share with you a fun fact I found. Creative researchers found out that the chemical composition of the decomposing body of a grasshopper also has a large influence on the microscopic processes going on in the area’s soil! Basically they had two groups of grasshoppers, one happy and one stressed by the presence of predators (spiders). The stressed grasshoppers needed more energy and started eating more carbohydrate rich food, so they are not very different from us humans that go for junk food when stressed. After certain time the researchers ground up the grasshopper corpses and mixed them with soil and found that the dirt with the remains of calm grasshoppers was far more efficient in breaking down plant matter than the dirt containing the remains of stressed grasshoppers.
So many take home messages there!