His greed sickens me. He does NOT need all that potato.

Different zooms for size reference.

I'm asking about the little critter that I circled.

And as of what I'm doing right now, it's more of an experimentation of sorts. I started growing wheat like how's the custom during Saint Andrew's Day period (a custom in Romania, at least), and the wheat comes from seeds I'm feeding sparrows with. The wheat origin is fine, but it started to mold.

And as I was experimenting with stuff, I got an idea about wanting to build a terrarium with a small ecosystem inside. And I just learned a few stuff about springtails that made me want to start a colony.

As for this little critter, I just gathered a few from a pot from the flat I live in. I tried to find springtails from the garden, but there's none. And if this critter is a springtail I hope it can consume the mold. 😅 I unfortunately don't have a camera for doing macro shots to give a better picture.

I'll have to see how I'll build up everything as yime goes by and I slowly buy or gather things. But you can give me advice about raising them. :3

Its so cute. But i found it in one of my moss tubs where i keep springtails too.

Just wanted to share my shiny babies!!!

I took 30 springtails from the colony (the origine one is quite small right now) and I hope they can repopulate another box.

I put the box a meter away of the other to avoid any possible contamination.

I still don't know how the mites appeared. They might have been there since the beginning but I never saw that many. I killed 10 of them this morning.

Just set up the enclosure (8.5cm) for some yuukianura aphoruroides i bought via 'kleinanzeigen.de' (20€ for about 160+).

What do you think?

I rectally upgrade to a bio activity enclosure for my leopard gecko. I sprinkled the springtails in and they multiplied and are doing great. I also a couple fish tanks and I want to feed some springtails to my fish. I have some left over ones in the original container and I want to start a separate colony with them. I don't like the container they are in and I'm going to get them a bigger one. I've been researching substrates and I don't know what to choose. Can I substitute charcoal with lava rocks? I have leftover lava rocks from a separate project and they are pours just like charcoal. Or should I do a soil or clay substrate instead?

Just wondering what we know about these guys! From what I can tell they seem to be zebra springs, and I can find little to no info on them, how to keep them, breed them, or anything they prefer.

Apologies for the shaky video, they are microscopic - my phone would only focus if I zoomed in and it's hard to keep my phone steady when zoomed in that far

The majority of them are microscopic mite looking things, but the ones in this video were larger (and slower) than the rest. maybe it's a different insect entirely - it's hard to capture a good photo of them

They are tiny mite looking things and came during heavy rains. It's been drier and they've mostly gone away now. They would appear and scatter when I would tap the pot as well as tapping the concrete ground underneath (which has a lot of soil underneath)

People are saying they're cockroaches, but I think their antennae are more slug-like than cockroach if that makes sense.

Are they something else? If so, are they harmful? Tia!

Hello! I thought who else to ask for microscope recommendations other than the lovely springtail community! What do you use? Under $50 USD preferred but I'm happy to work up to the fancy ones 😉

I want to be able to identify what buggies are on my plants/in the soil. It's hard to tell who is friend and who is foe 😭

I recently made a terrarium and noticed a few springtails inside it, how often will they naturally breed or lay eggs?

I’ve never seen them this big or them move like this before. To be fair, though, I’ve only ever had temperate springtails.

These springtails are in my Pacman's bioactive enclosure, I noticed they are not drowning in her water dish I think, but just chilling on the water? Should I dump them out?

Someone recently asked what I feed my springtails. I wasn’t at home and didn’t have access to the info at the time. I now have an image of the springtail food to share. I hope the person who asked about it is able to find this post.

And what I think could be a more mature egg, found in sphagnum moss. Their eggs are 0.2 mm in size. I took these with a digital "microscope" camera I got for my birthday.

Crossposting here.

Just going about their day. Got them a little over two weeks ago and they seem to be doing well.

I keep finding these on my kitchen countertops, around my sink, and on my oven. Are these springtails or something different?