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Kelly’s Field Notes
Common Name: Springtails, Snow fleas (winter-active species)
Class: Collembola (Subphylum Hexapoda). Springtails have six legs but are not true insects as their mouthparts are tucked inside the head (entognathous). This means they are their own class alongside the insects rather than within them (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024).
Orders: Poduromorpha, Entomobryomorpha, Symphypleona, and Neelipleona (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024).
Family: Roughly 30 families worldwide (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024).
Genus: Several hundred genera worldwide (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024).
Species: About 9,000 described species, but the true total is estimated at 50,000 to 65,000 (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024)! There are nearly 700 species in North America north of Mexico (Christiansen & Bellinger 1998). Springtails have been found on every continent, including Antarctica and in the Arctic (Britannica).
Notable species:
Snow Flea (Hypogastrura nivicola and H. harveyi) - these species emerge in enormous numbers on the surface of late-winter snow, looking like spilled pepper. They stay active in the cold thanks to a glycine-rich antifreeze protein unlike any found in fish or insects (Graham and Davies 2005).
Diminutive Springtail (Dicyrtomina minuta) - a species found in backwards in Europe, North America, and parrots of Africa and South America, it is the current world record holder for the fastest backflip of any animal. The springtail has a body length of 1-2 mm but can backflip up to 102 mm horizontally, 62 mm vertically. It cannot jump forward (Smith and Harrison 2024).
Giant Springtails (Holacanthella spp.) - endemic to New Zealand, hefty springtails reach up to 17 mm, making them the largest springtails on Earth. They are so big they have lost the furcula entirely and cannot jump (Stevens et al. 2007).
Clover Springtail (Sminthurus viridis) - a small green globular springtail and one of the few species that is a genuine crop pest, damaging pasture and legume crops in Australia (Britannica).
Seashore springtail (Anurida maritima) - this species lives on rocky shores, forages on the rocks at low tide, then retreats into crevices with a trapped air film before the water returns. It runs on an internal ~12.4-hour tidal rhythm that persists even in the lab away from any tide (Foster and Moreton 1981).
Common White Springtails (Folsomia candida) - this species is a standard international test organism for soil toxicity; it reproduces by parthenogenesis, so lab populations are all-female clones (Missouri Department of Conservation).
Rhyniella praecursor - a fossil springtail from the ~400-million-year-old Rhynie chert of Scotland, long considered the oldest known hexapod and still remarkably similar to living species (Engel and Grimaldi 2004).
Description:
Springtails are tiny, soft-bodied (squishy on the outside gooey on the inside), wingless hexapods (not insects!). Most species are 1-5 mm long (the smallest adults can be as tiny as 0.12 mm), and colors range wildly, they can be white, gray, brown, blue, purple, green, speckled, and even metallic (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024). Their body plans come in two types: elongated and segmented or round and fused-bodied (their little abdomens look like a tiny balloon). Springtail antennae are short and have four to six segments. Many soil species have reduced eyes or none at all (sight is unnecessary when pushing through dark soil). Species that do have eyes have clusters of up to 8 single eyes (not compound eyes!). Six of these single eyes detect light/dark while the other 2 detect polarized light (Missouri Department of Conservation).
Springtails are also light enough to drift through the air like dust motes. They have been captured in aerial plankton samples nearly two miles up (3.2 km) (Missouri Department of Conservation).
Perhaps the most important part of a springtail is the furcula (or furca). The furcula is a forked, spring-loaded appendage folded beneath the abdomen and held under tension by a clasp called the tenaculum (Britannica). This is where we get the common name for springtails! When the latch is released the furcula slams down against the ground, catapulting the springtail into the air. This is a latch-mediated spring-actuated jump, the same category of jumping mechanism used by our friend the click beetle (Smith and Harrison 2024). While the spring is used to escape predators, their every day form of locomotion is walking.
A second, also very fun appendage, gives the group its Class name: the collophore. This is a ventral tube on the first abdominal segment (Class Collembola: Greek kolla = glue + embolos = peg). Early naturalists thought it glued the springtail to surfaces, but it does do that and more. The collophore secretes fluid, absorbs water, and helps regulate the springtail’s body moisture. It can also be everted as a sticky anchor to right it after a tumbling landing (springtails tend to tumble often) (Britannica; Cannings and Scudder 2005; Smith and Harrison 2024).
Springtails breathe through their cuticle (the exoskeleton), so getting wet can be a real danger for the little guys. Their cuticle is covered in a pattern of nanoscopic granules with overhanging mushroom-shaped bits that repel not only water but oils and organic solvents. This makes it “omniphobic” (a surface that repels nearly all liquids regardless of polarity). A submerged springtail holds a tight film of air against its body and can survive underwater for extended periods (the surface of their cuticle also resists bacterial growth!) (Helbig et al. 2011; Hensel et al. 2016).
Speaking of cuticles, many species are covered in loose, iridescent scales (like a butterfly or moth’s wing). A predator that grabs a springtail will end up getting a mouthful of scales while the springtail sproings off to safety. The scales will all regrow at the next molt (Missouri Department of Conservation).
Life Cycle:
Females lay eggs in soil, leaf litter, or rotting wood. She might lay them one at a time or in small clumps, depending on species. Springtails have no larval stage! Hatchlings are miniature adults (lacking reproductive organs) and simply molt and grow, sometimes reaching maturity after as few as 3-12 molts. The full egg-to-adult cycle takes a few weeks in warm conditions (Britannica). This lifecycle is called “ametabolous,” which means springtails undergo no true metamorphosis. Remember from our episodes about insects we have complete (egg, larva, pupa, adult) and incomplete metamorphosis (egg, nymph, adult). Unlike actual insects, springtails keep molting after reaching adulthood, which can be up to around 50 times over a lifetime. Even more distinctive from insects, pringtails can even shrink between molts when food is scarce (Britannica).
Reproduction is very, let’s say, indirect. Males deposit stalked packets of sperm (spermatophores) on the substrate for females to pick up. They do not make bodily contact. In some species the male simply scatters them around and hopes for the best. Very indirect indeed. But, in other species, especially the globular springtails, the male performs an elaborate dance or plants a little “fence” of spermatophores around the female and guides her to them (Cannings and Scudder 2005). Still pretty hands off as far as mating usually goes.
Springtails are the janitors of the soil. Most feed on fungal hyphae and spores, decaying plant material, bacteria, algae, and pollen, with a few species predating on nematodes, rotifers, and other springtails (Cannings and Scudder 2005). By grazing fungi and fragmenting litter, they regulate decomposition and cycle nutrients. For these reasons you will often find them as clean up crews (with our isopods buddies) in pet reptile tanks. The average densities of springtails in the soil are around 100,000 per cubic metre, but extremes of 100 million per square metre have been reported (this is rare) (Cannings and Scudder 2005). Their numbers are absolutely staggering! Typical springtail densities run in the tens of thousands per square meter of soil, with regular peaks up to 2 million per square meter recorded in the tundra. Their total global biomass is estimated at roughly 27 megatons of carbon which is three times that of all wild land vertebrates combined (Potapov et al. 2023)! Springtails are found in diverse habitats including soil down to 1.5 m, in caves, tree canopies, deserts, the intertidal zone, on Himalayan slopes near 7,800 m, in the air, and on Antarctic ice (Cannings and Scudder 2005).
Springtails Are Not Insects (I Promise!):
Springtails, along with the Protura (coneheads, telsontails) and Diplura (two-pronged bristletails), are entognathous hexapods. Described earlier in these notes, their mandibles and maxillae (mouthparts) sit inside a pouch in the head rather than out in the open like an insect’s. Combined with their four-six-segmented antennae, six or fewer abdominal segments (insects have 6-11), lack of wings (lack of ancestral wings even), and continued molting as adults, most modern taxonomic treatments give them their own class, Collembola, as a sister group to the true insects (Bellinger et al. 1996–2024; Britannica). Their lineage is absolutely ancient - Rhyniella springtails were already scavenging among the first land plants roughly 400 million years ago (Engel and Grimaldi 2004).
Super Powers:
The Furcula Flip - the diminutive springtail Dicyrtomina minuta leaves the ground in about a thousandth of a second, spins backward at up to 368 rotations per second (the fastest backflip of any animal), and climbs more than 60 mm, over 60 times its own body height (Smith and Harrison 2024).
Teleportation - the jump is so fast that to the naked eye the animal simply disappears (Smith and Harrison 2024).
Stick the Landing - after a chaotic tumbling flight, springtails can evert the collophore as an adhesive anchor to pull themselves upright (Smith and Harrison 2024).
Untouchable - a nanostructured cuticle that repels water, oils, and solvents, traps an air layer for breathing underwater, and resists bacteria. Engineers are copying it to build self-cleaning, pressure-resistant coatings (Helbig et al. 2011; Hensel et al. 2016).
Built-in Antifreeze - snow fleas stay active on the snow surface using a glycine-rich antifreeze protein so unusual that it evolved independently of every other known antifreeze in animals; it has even been studied for extending the storage life of transplant organs (Graham and Davies 2005).
Gregarious! - among the most abundant animals on land, with peak densities of 2 million per square meter (with 100 million per square meter having also been reported) and more biomass than all wild terrestrial vertebrates put together (Potapov et al. 2023). Springtails are everywhere and congregate together.
Ancient - one of the oldest hexapod lineages known, with a 400-million-year fossil record that predates the dinosaurs by about 170 million years (Engel and Grimaldi 2004; Guinness World Records 2017).
References:
Bellinger, P. F., Christiansen, K. A., & Janssens, F. (1996–2024). Checklist of the Collembola of the world. http://www.collembola.org
Cannings, R. A., & Scudder, G. G. E. (2005). The springtails of British Columbia (Order Collembola). E-Fauna BC, University of British Columbia. https://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/efauna/CollembolaofBC.html
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Springtail. In Britannica.com. Retrieved September 4, 2026, from https://www.britannica.com/animal/springtail
Engel, M. S., & Grimaldi, D. A. (2004). New light shed on the oldest insect. Nature, 427(6975), 627–630. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02291
Foster, W. A., & Moreton, R. B. (1981). Synchronization of activity rhythms with the tide in a saltmarsh collembolan Anurida maritima. Oecologia, 50(2), 265–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00348049
Graham, L. A., & Davies, P. L. (2005). Glycine-rich antifreeze proteins from snow fleas. Science, 310(5747), 461. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1115145
Earliest springtail. (2017). In Guinness World Records. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/498040-earliest-springtail
Helbig, R., Nickerl, J., Neinhuis, C., & Werner, C. (2011). Smart skin patterns protect springtails. PLoS ONE, 6(9), e25105. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025105
Hensel, R., Neinhuis, C., & Werner, C. (2016). The springtail cuticle as a blueprint for omniphobic surfaces. Chemical Society Reviews, 45(2), 323–341. https://doi.org/10.1039/C5CS00438A
Missouri Department of Conservation. (n.d.). Springtails. Discover Nature Field Guide. Retrieved September 4, 2026, from https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/springtails
Potapov, A. M., Guerra, C. A., van den Hoogen, J., Babenko, A., Bellini, B. C., Berg, M. P., Chown, S. L., Deharveng, L., Kováč, Ľ., Kuznetsova, N. A., Ponge, J.-F., Potapov, M. B., Russell, D. J., Alexandre, D., Alatalo, J. M., Arbea, J. I., Bandyopadhyaya, I., Bernava, V., Bokhorst, S., . . . Scheu, S. (2023). Globally invariant metabolism but density-diversity mismatch in springtails. Nature Communications, 14, 674. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36216-6
Smith, A. A., & Harrison, J. S. (2024). Jumping performance and behavior of the globular springtail Dicyrtomina minuta. Integrative Organismal Biology, 6(1), obae029. https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obae029
Stevens, M. I., Winter, D. J., Morris, R., McCartney, J., & Greenslade, P. (2007). New Zealand’s giant Collembola: New information on distribution and morphology for Holacanthella Börner, 1906 (Neanuridae: Uchidanurinae). New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 34(1), 63–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014220709510065
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