Critique Springies from Sheff...

TimmyG

TimmyG

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Tim
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Ok, everyone seems to be finding exotic springtails in their back gardens at the moment!! I had to travel over an hour and go to the specialist botanical gardens to find my first ones.

I've had these on Flickr a few days so you might have seen them before. I don't think I've shared them here though..

A male and female to show the sexual dimorphism of this particular species:

Katiannidae genus nov.1 sp. nov (♂) by Tim.Garlick, on Flickr

Katiannidae genus nov.1 sp. nov (♀) by Tim.Garlick, on Flickr
 
Fantastic. Wonderful shots.

Must go back out to the woods to see if the genus nov 2's out there are up to posing for me!
 
Two ace shots of a new species to you. Like you think I will need to travel to find one :crying:
 
I too wouldn't know which is which Tim, but I do know that these are two great shots.(y)

George.
 
Great stuff Tim
How do you tell what sex they are but then I think I need a book on them.
 
Thanks guys!

The male is the top one with the bright orange/red splotch on top. This is an example of a species with a colour difference between gender, and you can actually see the difference with the naked eye (or at least, I could).

Not all collembola species are so obvious though. Usually you have to look for the genital papilla of the males as the patterning is often indistinguishable between male and females. Here's one of a male Dicytomina fusca:

317/365/2013 - Grazing by Tim.Garlick, on Flickr

Unfortunately you can't add notes on Flickr at the moment, but the papilla is the smaller appendage dropping down at the rear end.

Other species have a significant size difference between male and female (some of the sminthurinus species for example - the males latch on to the females antenna and the females carry them around as part of the courtship ritual).

Frans has also started some research into being able to assign a gender to Dicyrtomina species by looking at the facial patterning. See here for more info:

http://www.collembola.org/publicat/dimorphy.htm
 
Wonderful shots Tim I especially like the last one but they are all superb
forgive my ignorance but I guess that these are non UK ones that came in the tropical plants? :)
 
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LCPete said:
Wonderful shots Tim I especially like the last one but they are all superb
forgive my ignorance but I guess that these are non UK ones that came in the tropical plants? :)
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Thanks Pete, well the first two are. They are believed to have been brought across with tropical plants from either Australia or New Zealand, although @T0p cat finds them in his back garden...

The one I posted for illustrative purpose is a native and found in the woodland near my house.

mattd85 said:
Very nice, I will need to start researching the species now :)
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Yeah, I thinking of getting myself a copy of Hopkins' Biology of Springtails. It's over £100 but well worth it I'm reliably told. I have his Key already, but check out collembola.org if you haven't already...

orionmystery said:
Love the first one, Tim. So beautiful. Wonderful light too!
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Thanks Kurt! This was with my older but larger diffuser, so glad you like the light. I think I have concluded that big is the way forward when it comes to diffusion..
 
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