A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1367 entries
springtail
A springtail is a minute six-legged animal of soil, leaf litter, and moss, usually under a few millimeters, that jumps by releasing a forked appendage held cocked under its abdomen. Released, it strikes the ground and flips the animal several inches into the air, tumbling. They occur in enormous numbers, often over a hundred thousand in a square meter of woodland floor.
Etymology
The English name is for the jumping organ, which is properly called a furcula, Latin for a little fork. Springtails were long classed as insects and are now generally placed just outside them, in a separate group.
Notes
Snow fleas are springtails, appearing on the surface of snow in numbers on mild winter days and looking like scattered pepper. They carry an antifreeze protein that has been studied for use in preserving transplant organs. They are also among the principal grazers of fungi in soil, and glacier mouse and cryoconite both describe habitats in which springtails are the largest animals present.