Giant springtails are stunningly beautiful and iconic animals, mostly from Australia and New Zealand. Unprotected and still almost unknown, they are risking extinction through climate change and native forest logging. I went to find them.
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Below our feet exists a dark, delicate, remarkable and mostly unexplored world of soil biodiversity. Within its hidden depths, a myriad of different lives and networks exist.
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While very much at home in a cave, Neelus murinus isn’t just a cave dweller. As one of Europe’s most adaptable and common troglophile Collembola, it is also perfectly happy in mines, house cellars, dungeons or even in the decaying depths of woodland leaf litter.
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Springtails, officially known as Collembola, are a small and incredibly common invertebrate and a big part of the soil mesofauna, worldwide. They’re objectively and categorically way better than horses, tigers, dogs, bush babies, koalas and hedgehogs.
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The genus of Sminthurides contains many species, with quite a few solely water dwelling springtails worldwide. In the UK, S. aquaticus is by far the most common, although S. malmgreni can also be found in soil as well as skipping about happily on the water.
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A US citizen’s house should be a sanctuary during these crazy times, a place to close the door on the outside world and relax. But for many, a house is no longer a home. Across the US, home-owners are now struggling with a new home invasion that no gun, alarm, bolt or lock can stop.
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I had arrived with big expectations and a head torch, but reality soon crept in. Firstly, lava stone is the most painful rock to kneel on, no question. It even hurts, picking up a rock. After half an hour of fruitless searching, I found a single springtail, a juvenile Neelus murinus.
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With a condition like Morgellons, apart from the usual evils lined up, like aliens, vaccines, government nanotechnology, the Illuminati and the devil, Collembola have become one of the main culprits behind any bout of frenzied itching and crawling sensations.
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Within a few days of arriving, beneath the tree ferns at St Columba Falls in the east of Tasmania, I'd found and photographed my first Adelphoderia regina, a juvenile, complete with those bizarre neck organs. They were unmistakable. I also saw my first Acanthanura, the genus of famous Australian 'giant' springtails and got a leech in my eye. That was a great day.
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On noise and the dislike of handshakes and rice pudding.
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Franz Josef has one of the most accessible glaciers in NZ, the other being Fox Glacier, a few miles beyond. Climate change is pushing the glaciers back at an incredible and saddening rate. If it continues to melt, within thirty years, there may not be any glaciers left at all.
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On macro photography, the digital revolution and flower headbands.
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I'm often asked- Andy, where can I get my very own Collembola? Do they make good pets? Do they hum as they stroll along? And do they even know how adorably cute they look?
Unfortunately, science doesn't know the answers to these questions yet.
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On how I succeeded in finding two of the UK's rarest species of Collembola. And a new one too...
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Passion and the Springtail. A discussion...
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It's coming up to the end of summer in New Zealand and almost the start of spring in the UK. Time goes quickly.
When I first left the UK to begin this journey, a couple of years ago, I didn't look back once.