Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Found Insect: Springtails!


OK, so springtails are not technically insects, they are "non-insect hexapods". They have six legs but taxonomists have placed them outside of class Insecta for reasons having to do with their mouth-parts being inside their head. They are in a subclass called Collembola.

I found these little guys floating on the surface tension of a puddle while on a walk in the woods. They are only about a millimeter in length.


Dicyrtomina sp.