All About Arthropods Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Just published a new springtail-focused post which also includes a neat announcement for the blog. https://allaboutarthropods.blogspot.com/2017/03/collembola-their-containers-and.html 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlattaAnglicana Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Nice post! I find springtails fascinating, in fact I got interested in them before I got interested in roaches and other insects, although I have never cultured them in captivity (other than the ones I inevitably find in my house plant pots, though I'm not sure that really counts!). We have a lot of them in the garden here in the UK (we have four huge oak trees so lots of leaf litter for them!) including Orchesella cincta. There is a lot of debate about whether they are still considered insects and some taxonomists now put them in a separate category altogether, albeit related. If you don't already know of him by far the best and most knowledgeable person on the internet (and probably in the world!) about collembola is Frans Janssens from the University of Antwerp - his site http://www.collembola.org is an absolute gold mine of information about these little creatures! You will probably be able to identify your unknown Hypogastura from there - if not drop Frans a mail, he is very helpful and can usually identify them from photos, often to species level. This photo site is also useful for identification and simply seeing the sheer variety of these tiny creatures out there - Frans also frequents the site and identifies quite a lot of the springtails in the photos: https://www.flickr.com/groups/334033@N24/pool/ For what it's worth, the "dark morph" of Orchesella cincta are the males, and the more mottled brown ones are females, so if you have a mix of those they should breed for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All About Arthropods Posted March 12, 2017 Author Share Posted March 12, 2017 7 hours ago, BlattaAnglicana said: Nice post! I find springtails fascinating, in fact I got interested in them before I got interested in roaches and other insects, although I have never cultured them in captivity (other than the ones I inevitably find in my house plant pots, though I'm not sure that really counts!). We have a lot of them in the garden here in the UK (we have four huge oak trees so lots of leaf litter for them!) including Orchesella cincta. There is a lot of debate about whether they are still considered insects and some taxonomists now put them in a separate category altogether, albeit related. If you don't already know of him by far the best and most knowledgeable person on the internet (and probably in the world!) about collembola is Frans Janssens from the University of Antwerp - his site http://www.collembola.org is an absolute gold mine of information about these little creatures! You will probably be able to identify your unknown Hypogastura from there - if not drop Frans a mail, he is very helpful and can usually identify them from photos, often to species level. This photo site is also useful for identification and simply seeing the sheer variety of these tiny creatures out there - Frans also frequents the site and identifies quite a lot of the springtails in the photos: https://www.flickr.com/groups/334033@N24/pool/ For what it's worth, the "dark morph" of Orchesella cincta are the males, and the more mottled brown ones are females, so if you have a mix of those they should breed for you I can definitely see how these tiny and very odd creatures along with their comical antics could spark an interest in arthropods as a whole. I never really got into this these guys until around a month ago when I found some large and beautiful Tomocerus sp. and Orchesella villosa, since then I've developed a large appreciation for them and plan on culturing some of the more interesting species in my area. Awesome, would be cool to see what other species you have over there too, any other large species or globulars? I didn't know about him or his site, thanks for the info! Ah, thank again. Should have figured that out by seeing that nearly all the pics of black individuals on bugguide.net are labeled as males, but I guess I just overlooked that. lol I half about half and half so I should have a good breeding group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlattaAnglicana Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 51 minutes ago, All About Insects said: Awesome, would be cool to see what other species you have over there too, any other large species or globulars? We have quite a few in the UK including some of the larger Tomoceridae and globulars too, although I have only seen the elongate species in our garden (Entomobrya and Orchesella species). My favourite UK species is Pogonognathellus longicornis which is a large (well, for a springtail - 6mm!) elongate species that has a fascinating and (I think, anyway!) endearing trait - when blown on gently it can curl its very long antennae into cute little spirals, as the photos on the link below show: http://urweb.roehampton.ac.uk/collembola/taxonomy/(350TOlon).html I think this is the only UK species that can do this, although I believe Pogonognathellus flavescens may be able to bend its antennae to a lesser extent. Good luck with breeding your Orchesella cincta, do keep us up to date on how you get on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All About Arthropods Posted March 13, 2017 Author Share Posted March 13, 2017 6 hours ago, BlattaAnglicana said: We have quite a few in the UK including some of the larger Tomoceridae and globulars too, although I have only seen the elongate species in our garden (Entomobrya and Orchesella species). My favourite UK species is Pogonognathellus longicornis which is a large (well, for a springtail - 6mm!) elongate species that has a fascinating and (I think, anyway!) endearing trait - when blown on gently it can curl its very long antennae into cute little spirals, as the photos on the link below show: http://urweb.roehampton.ac.uk/collembola/taxonomy/(350TOlon).html I think this is the only UK species that can do this, although I believe Pogonognathellus flavescens may be able to bend its antennae to a lesser extent. Good luck with breeding your Orchesella cincta, do keep us up to date on how you get on Cool, love the globulars as well as any large, unusual, or colorful species. Those are amazing, I really hope to stumble upon a Pogonognathellus sp. one day, would love to try my hand at culturing them! Thanks, I'll be sure to! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All About Arthropods Posted April 10, 2017 Author Share Posted April 10, 2017 Well the O.cincta have been breeding for me, but at very slow rates(I have only around 15 young so far). I might be missing something in their care, but I'm thinking that they're just a slow-reproducing species since I'm not observing any casualties. On the other hand, my O.villosa have proven to be very prolific (I have probably around 100 young right now)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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