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In spite of all the rain and good numbers of springtails over the last few weeks (dominated by Dicyrtomina saundersi), Isotomids have been largely missing. However, the recent haul of leaf litter had good number of Isotoma viridis, a species I have not seen since last winter.
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.
Thanks to Frans Janssens for the ID.
Found during a night hike in Cuc Phuong national park, Vietnam.
Globular springtails on the side of my large pond just near the water line. I assume they are Sminthurides aquaticus although I'm puzzled that it is only the small ones picking each other up by the antennae - I thought this was part of their courtship behaviour ?
There's lots of little globular springtails around locally at the moment. When I say "little", I'm talking 0.5mm or less. So today, in an attempt to get maximum magnification, I finally got around to trying the MP-E 65mm macro lens at full-extension (5x magnification) with a 1.4x tele-extender and a full set (68mm) of Kenko extension tubes. I imagine this gives around 9x magnification. The shot is lit with an MT-24EX Twin Lite flash.
So, this is what one of these little springtails looks like through the viewfinder with this setup. This is an un-cropped image from a full-frame Canon 5D3. The springtail is about 0.5mm. I'm not sure of the species here though.
At this sort of magnification, it's somewhat challenging to actually find the subject through the viewfinder (these are barely visible naked-eye) and to then then get decent focus. This was the only reasonable shot that I managed (from around 20). Just needs more practice! The camera was supported on a beanbag.
Found this pretty little thing on a window cill.
Useful link for these:
ws1.roehampton.ac.uk/collembola/taxonomy/%28185ENint%29.html
Tiny springtail (aren't they all?)
Family: Tomoceridae
Tilden Park pond
Berkeley, California
Springtails are generally about 6 mm longer (or less). This one was about 4 mm (0.25 inches). I was taking shots of some water-striders and this little guy wandered into the scene.
From Wikipedia: "Springtails (Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects."
You've probably heard the expression -- "It it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it's probably a duck!" Well, it used to be that if it was a tiny bug and had six legs, it was an insect. That's simplifying things a bit, but now all you can say is "It ain't necessarily so!"
Most insects have wings -- at least for part of their life-cycle -- and Collembola do not.
This springtail appears to be making its own tiny dent in space-time -- or causing the carpet to sag a bit under its weight, tiny as it is. But that's not a carpet -- that's the surface of the pond -- as you can see from the waterplants visible in the water underneath. That's how small this guy is.
Generally springtails are not aquatic -- and it's unlikely this one is either. They can often be found in leaf-litter -- dead and decaying piles of leaves. Something must have flung this one into the water. Maybe I kicked up some leaves as I knelt down to take pictures of the water-striders. And then it apparently hit the water and bounced like it was on a trampoline.
Its weight wasn't enough to make much of an impression upon the surface tension of the water. I don't know if it was able to simply scurry along and get back on land -- but it's unlikely it drowned. It's too tiny and too buoyant.
Frans Janssens, from Belgium, an expert on Collembola who has a webpage devoted to them at www.Collembola.org, informs me that this is likely a member of the family Tomoceridae.
From Janssens' website, I've learned that 400-million-year old fossils of Collembola have been found. They are believed to have evolved from ancient aquatic crustaceans. They are described as "dominating the Devonian" Period -- as far as small terrestrials creatures are concerned. This was the period when the first amphibians ventured on land. For an amusing non-scientific account of this period, I highly recommend a short story by Italo Calvino called "The Aquatic Uncle" from his book "Cosmicomics."
There are 8,000 described species of Collembola which have been described and identified. They are present in great numbers throughout much of the world -- and are said to be the most numerous of all non-microscopic animals.
Recent changes in classification -- which are far from settled -- have basically moved three different classes of wingless hexapods out of the Class Insecta and into other groupings (taxonomy is complex). Older sources include these three orders of wingless insects within a total of 29 insect orders (and About.com is one of these not-entirely current sources).
Silverfish and firebrats are wingless insects which remain in the class Insecta. They belong to the order Thysanura. Lice are insects, too -- and they are wingless also. It would be simpler for all non-scientists if all wingless insects were moved out of the class Insecta -- but at present that has not taken place.
About.com lists 29 orders of insects -- and all but nine of them end with "ptera" in the order name. "Ptera" means wing. But three of those orders, as mentioned previously, have now been moved out of the Class Insecta -- and the order Odonata, which does not end in "ptera" is made up of damselflies and dragonflies, which do have wings. So that means there remain five orders of Insecta which may or may not have wings. Unless some of those, too, have been reclassified recently.
So it isn't strictly true to say "All insects have wings" -- and I thought this was true. Now I know better -- and I'll have to stop saying and thinking that wings and insects are always linked
.
It is true that insects are the only kind of invertebrates to have developed flight -- and I have that fact to console me!
Very tiny herd of springtails under the bark of apple tree branches. Bit of a guess guess on narrowing down an ID, happy to receive any expert help!
Fully scaled, transverse iridescent bands. However the scales are easily lost and this species can only be accurately confirmed by the the presence of simple (rather than three-pointed) spines on the dens.
On top of the mountain in austria, covered in snow, I found a lot of these dark springtails. under the snow lay moss. there was also a stream of water.
this is what the place looked like: www.flickr.com/photos/126351668@N04/24937040639/in/photos...
Globular springtail on water barrel lid with bottle top behind it. Focus stacked using zerene. See www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/30814157024/ for a 3D version
Under a blazing yellow-leaved tree in the corner of Ratho church's graveyard, I sat down and rifled through the leaf litter. There were lots of things, leafhoppers, a centipede, mites, various tiny slugs and larvae, and of course springtails.
I think the striking upper right specimen is Dicyrtomina saundersi again, and my guess for the lower right is an Onychiurinae. The others I'm not certain of the species (more Dicyrtomina?).
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/8 (left)~f/6.3 (right), 1/200, ISO 1600.
Even the garden of a fairly new house, with no mature planting, just a lawn and some potted plants, hosts a wealth of these creatures. No globular springtails, but lots of these long hairy ones. Upper left I think is Orchesella cincta on a paving slab, a species I've not seen before; lower left on the surface of a plastic bin I would say is Entomobrya intermedia, which seems very common, and lower right might be Entomobrya nivalis, from cooler climes, wandering across moss in a plant pot (is the same, see below). Upper right I don't recognise; it was in rotting material on the surface of compost, rather than in the open (it's Isotoma viridis - thanks Frans!). These are all quite large - O. cincta was at the upper limit for springtails I've seen, maybe 5mm+. The others 2-3mm.
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/11 (UL), f/8 (UR), f/6.3 (lower two), 1/200, ISO 800 (ETTL with some compensation).
Visited another local churchyard today, and once again found Katiannidae genus nov.1 sp. nov.. This was in Shropshire and it has been found in several sites being surveyed as part of the Shropshire Springtail Atlas project. Last year I travelled to Sheffield especially to photograph these. Now I've found them at several sites on my doorstep!
A mature male (bottom right) showing characteristic red/black colouration, and several immature instars.
To give an idea of size - a shot on the the water barrel taken at 1:1 (FF). 3 globular springtails in the foreground
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.