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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
Taken at 5:1, focus stacked from 3 pics and cropped slightly. About 1.7mm body length. Has the simplest of compound eyes (8 eye spots)
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.
Springtail video Sminthurinus niger taken with my little modded sportscam. I have cleaned the sensor since :)
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
this is tiny. just slightly bigger than a flea. my first time to photograph this insect .
I'm still neglecting my garden colony of Katiannidae Genus nov.1 sp. nov., but did have a check today to see if there was anything interesting. I'm pleased I did because there were a few around including this attractive female (I'm fairly confident it's female) of Group 1 (where abd.6 is non-pigmented).
Compare with the previous image, which is a dark-form Group 2 male.
Canon MP-E65mm Macro (at 5x) + 1.4x tele-extender + 25mm extension tube + diffused YN24EX flash.
note springtail at top center-right
(only one, moving while making focus stack)
either particularly abundant this year, or I'm going to different places and noticing more
lichen photos arranged by genus - www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections/7215762439...
my photos arranged by subject - www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections
Nothing super fancy (the subject that is), just real close of a tiny springtail, but because it is shiny, it's a good indication of what the flash is doing.
Only about 3mm long at most.
Had a brief outing this morning to the village churchyard, looking for springtails. There were lots of Dicyrtomina species around but the gusty wind meant that they were not keen to stand still for photographs.
Having recently moved to Staffordshire, I contacted the Staffordshire Inverebrate Group. Interestingly, A Provisional Atlas of the Springtails of Staffordshire has just been published. That will no doubt encourage me to seek out and record more local species. I'm not sure how many counties have similar atlases.
Canon 5D3 + MP-E 65mm (at x5) + 1.4x Tele-extender + 36mm extension tube + MT24-EX Twinlite flash.