Springtail courtship dance

[GardenersHelper]

I was over at the church grounds yesterday and as in some other recent sessions I noticed some globular springtails that were too small for me to get decent photos. (By my calculations they are around 0.6mm long.) However, I did notice some behaviour I have not seen before.

I photographed this pair for over five minutes and they repeatedly came together, head to head, with a bit of clambering one on the other in one case, then separated, came back together and repeated, over and over again.

It turns out that this is a springtail courtship dance, behaviour 5 (the "Cha-cha-cha") on this page at decodedscience.org.


1905 Illustration 1 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

To give a sense of scale, here is another example that turned up as I was following an aphid as it wandered about.


1905 41 2021_06_01 DSC04106_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[Cobra]

To give a sense of scale, here is another example that turned up

Blimey, they are tiny!
An interesting insight to the life of a springtail Nick nicely captured

 

[GardenersHelper]

Blimey, they are tiny!

Yes. I think I may use the two 2X teleconverter setup over there next time to give a bit more magnification because most of what I see over there is on the small side. That said, the 8X magnification I get with the double 2X configuration still wouldn't be enough to get a decent photo of these little things.

An interesting insight to the life of a springtail Nick nicely captured

Thanks Chris.

 

[Paul Iddon]

Excellent work Nick. I have seen this courtship once with the smintherides malmgreni in my pond but I wasn't able to capture the event like this, though I was told later that it was what was happening.

Paul.

 

[AdamSi]

Some great macro work there!