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A local Staffordshire churchyard has a thriving colony of these springtails. They seem to congregate on a damp area of wall. They have only recently been reported in the UK and are designated Katiannidae genus nov.1 sp. nov..
As there has been lots of rain, I visited the churchyard this morning to check on numbers. The wall was swarming with them. I did a few shots and when processing them, noticed that there was a spermatophore on this one. I presume that it's been produced by a male of this particular species.
Canon 5D3 + MP-E 65mm macro (at x5) + 2x tele-extender + MT-24EX flash.
Springtail portrait
The fluorescence of the "skin" works as backlight for the scales, thus their structure is emphasized.
Mitutoyo 20 NA 0.42, tube lense: ITL200 (Nikon)
Illumination: backlight and UV (365nm)
Happy New Year to All.
On a leaf in the garden. Springtails can survive the cold so this is a subject to photograph after the insects have gone for the winter.
Sminthurides aquaticus - In courtship the male springtail, above, the smaller of the couple, has specialized antennae to grasp the female antennae. They will stay locked in this embrace for hours with the female periodically lifting the male into the air. She did this several times as I watched them.
Around 0.8mm - 0.9mm long, these springtails have appeared from nowhere on the lumps of suet that I feed to the the rest of my menagerie. I assume that they are Sminthurinus domesticus, a species which survives only in indoor locations in this part of the world.
This is a shot from my garden of a whole bunch of springtails (Collembola) on the surface of the water in a plant pot. They were being moved round by the wind were clambering onto this small piece of wood and on each other.
Can name some but not all of them
This piece of Cordyline leaf was frozen to the lawn in our garden this morning, but the springtail seemed happy. I understand that they produce glycerols that act as a natural anti-freeze.
This is a composite of two images, one for the "overall" appearance and one to show the sub-anal appendage (SAA). The presence of this indicates a female.
I think these are Dicyrtomina saundersi but not 100%, they are about 1mm in length, this i think is a female or juvenile
Lifted up a rotten piece of wood and found at least 4 species under there! The globular ones (top left) mostly pinged off but the others barely moved! Not good shots as they're beyond my camera's abilities really, but thought I'd upload a montage anyway!
Upton Magna - Shropshire
Thanks to Frans for naming them! There's actually 5 species!
Top left = Dicyrtomina ornata + Dicyrtomina saundersi
Top right = Neanura muscorum, a springless springtail
Bottom left = Isotoma viridis
Bottom right = Pogonognathellus flavescens
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
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I picked up a new toy today and now have a new found interest in spring tails. This is a single image at the max mag on the 90mm but now doubled by having a 2x tele converter fitted. As my brain learns the new working distance I shall improve and might be able to get some stacks if any ever sit still long enough..
Spring tails are very small and also very interesting. They vary a lot. Some have eyes and some do not.
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We've had our first good rain for ages and ages, and the springtails are out en masse in the water bowls and droplets. There are a couple of species in here, seen best in the middle image.
More leaves left out in our Staffordshire garden last night as springtail shelters. Got lots of photographs this morning.
This is interesting. The dark (ochropus) form of Sminthurinus aureus with a dark orange (fuscus) form in the background. Then what should come wandering in from the right but (what looks like) Sphaeridia pumilis. This is one of the UK's smallest globular springtails at ~0.3mm in length. It's like the Serengeti on some of these leaves!
At first glance this image isn't overly appealing. When you realize this is a macro image of a springtail hexapod, commonly but incorrectly known as a "snow flea" it becomes unique. These tiny creatures resemble spilled pepper on the surface of the snow and are are virtually inconspicuous. Three extension tubes were used in conjunction with a macro lens plus a large crop to reveal the true appearance of this tiny creature. They are harmless and feed on decaying matter or algae on the snow. They have an "anti freeze" that keeps them from freezing in frigid weather.
Springtail, Tomocerus vulgaris
This species of springtails (collembola) is covered by small iridiscent scales. They are a kind of protection, but they get off easily - thus a tentative predator can not hold the springtail.
This is a living specimen, just "fixed" with a small droplet of water (adhesion) for a few seconds, to do the bracketing (around 300 single shots).
A magnified picture of a scale is here
Mitutoyo 7.4 NA 0.21, tube lense: ITL200 (Nikon)
Illumination: oblique and polarized backlight
The garden was nice and wet this morning with dew and fallen leaves on the lawn; perfect for springtail hunting. What I usually do is set up my camera on a solid surface with a little elevated platform in front of it. Just a block of wood or something. Sometimes I clip a small LED light above it (things can look pretty dim through the viewfinder). I then carefully pick up leaves from the lawn and scan the underside with a x5 hand-lens. When I find a leaf with springtails, I carefully walk them over to the camera and place them on the platform. If I'm lucky, the springtail is still there when I arrive (they are very prone to "springing" if disturbed).
This dark form of Sminthurinus aureus survived the journey and I managed some shots as it tiptoed across the leaf. I haven't got my current set-up calibrated for measurement, but typically these are a little over 0.5mm long.
Canon 1D IV + MP-E Macro (at x5) + full set on Kenko extension tubes + YN24EX twinlite flash. Cropped.
I'm attempting to get as many photographs of the male and female instars of the Katiannid springtail (Katiannidae Genus nov.1 sp. nov.) that we have in our Staffordshire garden. This is a "novel" species that has only been reported during the past 10 years (I think). I'm preparing a large matrix of images (6 images x 4 images) to post on Flickr and have been particularly looking for less mature instars.
This individual was crawling up the side of a black plastic garden storage bin. I rather liked the angle and composition, so thought I'd post it as a single image!
Canon MP-E65mm Macro (at 5x) + 1.4x tele-extender + 25mm extension tube + diffused MT24-EX Twinlite flash. Cropped. This individual ~0.6 mm.
I had time for a quick springtail hunt this morning, and found this tiny (less than 1mm) and cute Katiannidae (more specifically, a male Katiannidae Gen1 nov sp nov; many thanks to Frans Janssens for the information) on my compost bin. I took this single image at about 3x magnification using my MP-E 65mm lens, with some `redirected' on-camera flash (I still need to work on that!). The image was still quite underexposed (so needed some twiddling), was taken at high ISO, and is a large crop, so it's a bit noisy. Ideally, I need to sort my flash set-up out, and it'd be great to stack these, but they always seem to be constantly on the move.
One of the few adult instars of this springtail (Katiannidae Genus nov.1 sp. nov.) that I saw in the garden today. Lots of early instars around though. This individual (~1.15 mm) is a female of the Group 1 type. They have a non-pigmented 6th abdominal segment (not really visible in this shot). She's scuttling across a piece of broken terracotta pot.