2021 October 4 morning

    Jeremy Tatum writes:  I didn’t have to wait long for an answer to my appeal for a photograph of a Banded Woolly Bear.  Rosemary Jorna saw one up there on the Matterhorn along with the American Lady that was shown in yesterday’s posting.

Banded Woolly Bear  Pyrrharctia isabella (Lep.: Erebidae –Arctiinae)  Rosemary Jorna

   Mr E photographed some springtails near Mount Douglas Beach.  We are grateful to Dr Frans Jannsens for identifying them for us.   When I was young, which was a long time ago, life was simple, and springtails were in the Order Collembola in the Class Insecta.  Nowadays, life is more complicated. Springtails are no longer insects, and they are distributed among four Orders, which Dr Jannsens tells us are Poduromorpha, Neelipleona, Entomobryomorpha and Symphypleona.  

   Dr Jannsens gives us not only the species of the globose springtail below, but its subspecies and even its age (a subadult).

Ptenothrix maculosa olympia (Symphypleona – Dicyrtomidae)  Mr E

 

Ptenothrix maculosa olympia (Symphypleona – Dicyrtomidae)     Mr E

 

Entomobrya intermedia (Entomobryomorpha – Entomobryidae)

Mr E