December 8 – Victoria Natural History Society

2017 December 8

Thomas Barbin writes: Here are a few photos of some springtails that I found in my backyard in the Highlands on December 5. All of them were identified by Frans Janssens on bugguide.net.

Included are one photo of Pogonognathellus bidentatus, three photos of Morulodes serratus (one to show how small it is – they are tiny!) and two photos of Vesicephalus occidentalis. Frans says that this last species is quite uncommon. It is also interesting because it has interocular vesicles (the white lumps between its ‘eyes’) which are a kind of photoreceptor unique to the genus.

Jeremy Tatum writes: These are remarkable photographs of tiny animals. They present me, however, with a puzzle as how to label them in the captions and in the Index, where I aim for consistency and I label them by Order and Family. In simpler times, springtails belonged to the Order Collembola of the Class Insecta. Now, however, they are no longer regarded as insects (and with good reason), but they belong to the Class Entognatha. The name Collembola still exists, but it is promoted to Subclass, which includes three Orders. I believe Thomas has managed to photograph one representative of each Order! I hope I have the Orders and Families right in the labels below. I suspect that the taxonomy of the springtails is still under discussion by those who specialize in them.