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Sminthurides aquaticus forma levanderi - The male springtail, the smaller of the pair, grasps the female with specialized antennae. They may stay connected like this for hours while the female periodically lifts the male into the air.
Globular springtail walking on water in the bird bath. Have not cleaned the leaves out of it yet. Fun watching these as the slightest breath of wind and they go sailing across the surface
Found yesterday in some mud in the park in Opitter.
Isotomurus pseudopalustris : left up
Desoria trispinata : right up
Sminthurinus aureus juvenile : left down
Isotoma caerulea : right down
Thanks Frans Janssens for ID
Globular springtail on a water barrel lid. Focus stacked using zerene. See www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/46225849901/ for a 3D version
A globular springtail. Taken in Durham Botanic Gardens, UK. The eyes are kind of like little blackberries!
A juvenile instar of ~0.5 mm. Definite signs of the pigmentation pattern beginning to develop here.
[Part of a garden survey of the "novel" springtail Katiannidae Genus nov.1 sp. nov. that I'm doing for FransJanssens@www.collembola.org to establish the size and differences between the various instars.
Canon MP-E65mm Macro (at 5x) + 1.4x tele-extender + 25mm extension tube + diffused MT24-EX Twinlite flash. Heavily cropped.]
The weather was so appalling today there was no scope for getting out with the camera so I brought the outside, inside. This is a springtail (Collembola) - Dicyrtomina ornata. It is a globular springtail about 2mm long, found on a piece of dead wood. They use their abdominal, tail-like appendage, the furcula, that is folded beneath the body for jumping when the it is threatened. It is held under tension by a small structure called the retinaculum (or tenaculum) and when released, snaps against the substrate, flinging the springtail into the air. All of this takes place in as little as 18 milliseconds. For their size they can jump incredible distances with 30cm being possible; scaled to a human that is equivalent to us jumping 270m!
When the "springtail season" starts for me (typically when flying insects get fewer in number), I add a 1.4x tele-extender and 25mm of extension tubes to my regular macro setup and start searching. This morning I went back to Weston Park where I photographed the Sminthurus viridis yesterday.
Today I found a few leaves that had some of these little globular springtail species underneath. They are around 0.5mm in length. Looks like a Sminthurinus species but the colouring looks a little unusual. Perhaps one of the "reticulatus" types? Anyway, it's good to be back springtail-searching, but need to remind myself what they all look like!
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.
Springtails on the side of the pond X2 .
Sminthurides aquaticus. Juvenile female practicing lifting a juvenile male on the left.
A tiny springtail on a Camas stamen.
Family: Bourletiellidae
Possibly Bourletiella arvalis
Lekwungen territory
A very tiny Springtail found under leaf litter, I think it's a Lepidocyrtus curvicollis, approximately 1mm long. They have a pretty iridescent light blue colouring
Taken with Canon MP-E 65MM, 2X converter and defused flash at approximately 8X magnification hand held so not totally sharp
Springtails, class Collembola, form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects.
Slender springtails are primitive, wingless hexapods within family Entomobryidae.
They are known to jump far distances using a specialized appendage called a furcula.
These organisms are generally beneficial to ecosystems as they help decompose organic matter and improve soil health.
Around 4 mm length.
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Some other globular springtails from my trip to Weston Park this morning. Top right looks like Sphaeridia pumilis. All others are Sminthurinus species. Top left looks a bit like the one I posted previously but with less dark pigmentation patches. Bottom left looks like it may be Sminthurinus reticulatus and bottom right Sminthurinus aureus forma ochropus.