View allAll Photos Tagged springtail
I posted this just because I found it interesting. We are looking at the underside of a larger Springtail. This one briefly turned upside down whilst clinging to a piece of plant material. You can see the furca, which looks like an extra pair of folded legs on the underside of the abdomen. This is the mechanism they use to spring. They don't all spring and the ones that can don't always do it. Gently scrape some leaf litter back and you're likely to see some things flying into the air. Its quick and they launch with huge speed and acceleration. It seems it isn't generally very controlled but it gets them away from predators (and photographers) quickly.
The weather hasn't been very good for springtail photography (wet and windy). I do still take the opportunity to continue my search for "moustachiod" Sminthurinus springtails though, and managed to get a shot of this one before it blew away!
This individual has an orange base to the "eyebrows". Others I've seen have "tricolour" eyebrows; white at the top, yellow in the middle and orange at the base. Whether this is of any significance I have no idea!
Canon 5D3 + MP-E 65mm (at 5x) + 1.4x Extender + 36mm extension tube + MT24-EX Flash. Magnification 8x. Springtail ~0.6mm. Cropped a bit.
Another Staffordshire churchyard today, this time the one where I find the "alien" springtail species designated Katiannidae genus nov.1 sp. nov. Quite a few around. In the collage is a sub-mature male (top left) and some earlier instars.
These are very small. Taken at 10x magnification and then some significant cropping!
A raft of springtails on a little puddle on my compost bin lid. Pinkish ones- Ceratophysella bengtssoni. Smaller pale ones- Proisotoma minuta. I did rescue them after :)
Found under a Laceleaf Maple Bush on a pot. I am out of practice and I am not able to tell if this is a new one for me. I am hoping Frans or others can help me ID it so I can know if I should take better photos.
Springtail from the allotment, I think dicyrtoma fusca
The real size is 1.56 mm, magnification is 4.2
Some Springtails are quite plain in appearance. Not sure of the species on this one, but it just looks as though it is made from polished metal.
Someone sent me some springtails to identify which they had found grazing on a church wall. My first thought was Hypogastrura viatica but I've spent two days banging my head against the chaetotaxy and they're not! They have 111 clavate tenant setae (c.f. H. viatica: 233; H. purpurescens: 232), so H. manubrialis is a possibility but frankly I'm unconvinced by the mucro, so they're going to remain as Hypogastrura spp. However, I'd welcome comments from anyone who is better with these than I am.
UPDATE: This is Hypogastrura manubrialis.
A juvenile instar (just over 0.4 mm) showing development of pigment patches. Good detail of arrangement of abdominal setae (I know that Frans is interested in this).
[Part of a garden survey of the "novel" springtail Katiannidae Genus nov.1 sp. nov. that I'm doing with FransJanssens@www.collembola.org initially, to establish the size and differences between the various instars. As a result of the initial findings, Frans is speculating that there are two distinct groups:
Group 1 - where abd.6 in adults is pale, and
Group 2 - where abd.6 in adults is dark.
Canon MP-E65mm Macro (at 5x) + 1.4x tele-extender + 25mm extension tube + diffused MT24-EX Twinlite flash. Heavily cropped.]
Globular springtail X4. Focus stacked using zerene. Taken handheld using a 4X microscope lens on a sony mirrorless body
So you may have noticed that I'm uploading a lot of Collembola shots at the moment. This is partly because I can't find much else to photograph. But mostly its because a group of us is trying to map Shropshire's springtails, something which we believe has never been done anywhere at County level before.
This individual was 2.5 - 3mm long.
Springtails. Proisotoma minuta. 10X. Taken handheld using my microscope camera rig. Single shot showing the extremely narrow DOF
My first Sminthurides aquaticus, just where they ought to be - around the edge of a pond. They were so much smaller than I expected - the smallest ones scarcely visible to the naked eye. But I was in luck, as the water was partly frozen over. When I pressed gently on the surface, tiny pale specks jumped about like fleas - springtails doing what they do best. They moved slowly otherwise, but it was awkward leaning down and keeping my gear from falling in or disturbing the ice. The bitter cold didn't seem to bother them anyhow.
Canon EOS 5D mark III, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x, Kenko extension tubes, Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT (handheld, Live View).
65+68mm, f/6.3, 1/200, ISO 1600.