Searching for wild springtails

[Arcastra]

Searching for springtails, I tried looking hard in our farm and garden but my luck is zero, can anyone tell me how to lure springtails like how to make traps or whatsoever or how to encourage then live in a specific area.

 

[Wolfram1]

raised garden beds or garden beds in general are a great place to find them especially after a rain

 

[kingshockey]

not sure how much help this wil be couple a times i water logged some of my sling/ juvie cages and probably missed few feeder corpses during the wait for the cages to dry out they kinda moved in on their own into the cages have also noticed em jumpin around after heavy rain fall along the edges of lawns flower beds etc. so maybe if you flood out a planted area and look around ontop of rocks etc. you can catch some

 

[Nicole C G]

Look under leaf litter and look in moist areas. Just be ready to catch them as soon as you flip over the leaf as they will start to scatter. They eat decaying material so maybe to lure some you could put some cut up apple or other fruit into an area with shade. Maybe put it in a jar, lay it sideways and burry it halfway? Just know that if you do it that way, springtails aren’t going to be the only bugs you find.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Check under decaying wood and flat stones for small grey, purple, silver or white pill shaped springtails. Sift through loose soil for worm shaped white springtails (you can also lay out baits in the form of fresh or rotting vegetation on the soil and check under it after a couple days, but you'll get a lot of other stuff this way too.) Sifting through mats of decaying vegetation like grass clippings or compressed leaf litter can also yield results, look for the former two types and also greenish/purplish worm shaped springtails. The rest of your local springtail fauna that don't fit with the descriptions provided will most likely be useless as a CUC. Grey, purple, silver and white pills are assorted entomobryidae, which tend to be surface dwelling and can live in a variety of habitats depending on the species, white worm shaped springs are onychiuridae, isotomidae, or tullbergiidae, which are subterranean burrowers who like moist and cool habitats, and greenish/purplish worm shaped ones are hypogastruridae, brachystomellidae, or isotomidae, which are surface dwelling and tend to prefer moist organic matter filled habitats.

 

[Polenth]

Fill a bucket with water. Throw handfuls of soil into it. The springtails will float to the surface.

 

[Nicole C G]

Fill a bucket with water. Throw handfuls of soil into it. The springtails will float to the surface.

I have tried this but it doesn’t work well. It just made a bunch of mud. Maybe you had more luck?

 

[Edan bandoot]

Look under rocks and in leaf litter. Using a funnel to sort through leaf litter on a flat surface is what I do.

 

[Polenth]

I have tried this but it doesn’t work well. It just made a bunch of mud. Maybe you had more luck?

It's rare not to find any springtails that way. Keep in mind that they'll often be tiny and not easy to see. You can just skim off the surface of the water and pour it into a container with substrate and a little bit of food. It can be surprising what you'll catch, even if you didn't see it at the time.

 

[Nicole C G]

It's rare not to find any springtails that way. Keep in mind that they'll often be tiny and not easy to see. You can just skim off the surface of the water and pour it into a container with substrate and a little bit of food. It can be surprising what you'll catch, even if you didn't see it at the time.

I’m not saying I didn’t find any springtails, just not very many. Mostly earwigs.

 

[Arcastra]

thanks for all your advice, i finally found springtails in unexpected place which is under my cat's feeder.

 

[Smotzer]

If you just dig up natural soils and put it in a Tupperware container with a little moisture and leave it for a little bit, you’ll get some springtails, I did this with some native Armadillidium vulgare isopods, dug up some of the soil and put a chunk of limestone the isopod were not under in and put them all into a Tupperware container with actually no ventilation, left them for a month or two opening it occasionally to let in some air add as some water if needed or decaying plant matter. In a couple months had a springtail colony, isopods that we’re breeding, and some small ants, all coexisting Inside this Tupperware. It’s only now just the springtails and some of the ants and I sprinkled by blowing some of springtails off of the limestone into new isopod enclosures to seed them. I find this method I’ve used over a he years rather great for observing native populations in soils.