My Springtails

[Hisserdude]

Well I've been branching out more into springtails, so here's some of the more interesting species in my current collection.

First we have my Cotton springtails, Entomobrya unostrigata. Collected these myself here in Idaho, and they do fantastic in dryer, well ventilated setups. I've spread them around a lot in the hobby this year, hoping they'll catch on as one of the more popularly cultured species, their fast breeding rates and medium size give them good feeder potential.



Then we have my Giant Silver Springtails, Tomocerus minor. I also collected these here in Idaho, they prefer cooler, humid conditions, but also like good airflow. They are slower breeding than a lot of other springs, but get HUGE, 4-5 mms body length.




Now onto some of my more recent additions, we've got these cf. Willowsia sp. "Kota Kinabalu", Malaysian Silver Springtails. These are medium sized and breed well in humid setups, they like decent airflow as well but might breed in more stagnant setups as well. As far as I'm aware I'm the first to culture these in the US.





Now for another giant, Pogonognathellus dubius, Giant Silver Bullet Springtails. These seem to average a mm longer than my Tomocerus minor, and are also a decent bit bulkier. They do well in humid but well ventilated setups.






And lastly, I've got these amazing Giant Belted Springtails, Orchesella cincta. They do well in damp and well ventilated setups (the latter being a common requirement for a lot of the larger springtail species). These average around 4-5 mms as adults, pretty hefty for a springtail, and beautiful to boot!

 

[mickiem]

Very cool! I'm interested in some of those that would thrive in drier conditions. Do you have any of the bright colored springs?

 

[Farouche]

Thanks for sharing! They look cute. I wish other species of springtails were more readily available (or available at all). I'm in Europe btw. Haven't found much yet and can't travel around easily to collect myself so I'm stuck for now. I hope your springtail cultures will take off on your side of the pond!

 

[Hisserdude]

Very cool! I'm interested in some of those that would thrive in drier conditions. Do you have any of the bright colored springs?

I have plenty of the dry hardy Entomobrya available, see my availability list here.

Thanks for sharing! They look cute. I wish other species of springtails were more readily available (or available at all). I'm in Europe btw. Haven't found much yet and can't travel around easily to collect myself so I'm stuck for now. I hope your springtail cultures will take off on your side of the pond!

Hopefully the springtail hobby will get bigger both here and in Europe, you guys definitely have a lot of potential to bring in new species to the hobby, not just native EU species, but imported ones from Asia and Africa, etc., since y'all get inverts from those countries imported more regularly than here in the US.

 

[Farouche]

Hopefully the springtail hobby will get bigger both here and in Europe, you guys definitely have a lot of potential to bring in new species to the hobby, not just native EU species, but imported ones from Asia and Africa, etc., since y'all get inverts from those countries imported more regularly than here in the US.

I think it's mostly a very few people in Europe who have their business contact in Africa and whatnot to import many species. If you're just one of the 99% in the hobby who don't know anyone that collects inverts in the wild in Africa or Asia, well, you're just as much stuck. And I'm not sure the 1% would share their business contacts, and even if they did, I'm not sure it is profitable for the contacts to send just one box of springtails to a random address rather than 50 (500? 5000? who knows) boxes of various arthropods to a couple big guys in Europe. But hey I don't know how it all works.

 

[mickiem]

awesome! Thanks for the info. I'm glad we are seeing more diverse species in the hobby. I really love those Giant Belted. I'd love to those saturating the hobby.

 

[Jumbie Spider]

dry hardy Entomobrya

This sounds interesting. Do they also thrive in a high moisture setup?
(Wondering what's the catch )

 

[Hisserdude]

I think it's mostly a very few people in Europe who have their business contact in Africa and whatnot to import many species. If you're just one of the 99% in the hobby who don't know anyone that collects inverts in the wild in Africa or Asia, well, you're just as much stuck. And I'm not sure the 1% would share their business contacts, and even if they did, I'm not sure it is profitable for the contacts to send just one box of springtails to a random address rather than 50 (500? 5000? who knows) boxes of various arthropods to a couple big guys in Europe. But hey I don't know how it all works.

Well I'm just saying, if springtails catch on in the hobby, we'll see more vendors in those countries overseas collecting and selling what interesting species they can find, already we've had pretty red springtails imported from Malaysia, over time we'll see more and more exotics collected and exported (perhaps mostly from smaller vendors) into the EU and US hobbies. EU customs are more lax though so it's you guys who have the higher chance of bringing new species in.

awesome! Thanks for the info. I'm glad we are seeing more diverse species in the hobby. I really love those Giant Belted. I'd love to those saturating the hobby.

No problem! Yeah the giant belteds are awesome, already seeing some production in my colony, hopefully they explode soon!

This sounds interesting. Do they also thrive in a high moisture setup?
(Wondering what's the catch )

They'll do OK but definitely don't thrive in high humidity setups, and need a good amount of airflow in said setups to breed well. They prefer a good amount of airflow anyways, but other than that are very easy to get going, they've become borderline pests in a lot of my roach bins with how prolific they are. Literally ALL my roach and beetle cultures have at least a small amount of these living with them.