Collembola eggs, embryo

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Charles Krebs
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Location: Issaquah, WA USA
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Collembola eggs, embryo

Post by Charles Krebs »

More and more springtails kept showing up in one of my samples, so I took a look at the upper leaf surfaces on the vegetation I had collected. One leaf had quite a few springtail eggs on it, "embedded" in sections that had been eaten away. Most had already hatched, but there were still some in various stages of development.

These are pretty small... about 182 micron (0.007 inch) wide.

First two are at 20X on sensor (Olympus LPLFLN 20/0.40)
Last two are at 50X on sensor (Olympus LPLFLN 50/0.50)


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Planapo
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Location: Germany, in the United States of Europe

Post by Planapo »

Lovely! The first baby springtails I've ever seen!
A real Sunday treat. Made my day.

The stomata on the leaf and the diatoms give a good impression how tiny they really are.

--Betty
Atticus Finch: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view
- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Lee, N. H. 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird. J. B. Lippincott, New York.

Marek Mis
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Post by Marek Mis »

Beautiful images !

Marek

Charles Krebs
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Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:02 pm
Location: Issaquah, WA USA
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Post by Charles Krebs »

I still have a bowl with an abundant number of these little guys. I thought I would try to get a shot of one that had already hatched so I might be able to get an ID. Again I was impressed with how small they actually are. Most of the springtails I've observed and photographed have been much larger in size. The inset shows the full frame of a shot taken at 9X (on APS-C sensor). The larger version is a crop of the section indicated.

The eggs measured about 180 micron in diameter. This one measured about 300 micron "head-to-tail". My understanding is that immature collembola look just like the adults, but will molt at least 4 times (some species considerably more) before maturity.


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