Springtails walking on water

Springtails are probably the most numerous animals in our garden composting bins. Every time I lift the lids I can see hundreds jumping around on the surface of the decaying kitchen waste and rotting garden weeds.

Recently, after heavy rain, I saw them in a new context. A container beside one bin had filled with rainwater and I noticed little pale grey patches floating on the surface.

A close look revealed that they were springtails. 

Individually these tiny animals are rather cute, so light that they barely dimple the water surface. 

Collectively, there were hundreds of them floating in huddled groups on the meniscus.

The springtails could easily escape the surface tension, using the little device in their tail called a furcula, that acts rather like a pole vaulter's pole when it's straightened, catapulting the animal into the air.

In this picture you can also see a tiny brown tick floating amongst the springtails.

How they all came to be on the water surface is a mystery.

There are more pictures of springtails here 

Biodiversity in a kitchen waste recycling bin

Today's Guardian Country Diary is all about the contents of our garden kitchen waste compost bins.

We have been recycling all of the vegetable waste from the kitchen, together with garden weeds and fallen leaves, for about 30 years now, using three black compost bins. During that time we must have produced tons of compost that has all been dug back into the garden, which is now a very fertile plot.

These are some of the organisms that do all the recycling work.

The first organisms to colonise the vegetable peelings and fruit skins are fungi. I suspect that this might be a Penicillium mould, which often grows on the skins of rotting citrus fruits.

This is the rather lovely pin mould, Mucor mucedo, with glassy hyphae and sporangia that look like beads of polished jet.

This, I suspect, is Botrytis, a common coloniser of dead vegetable matter.

Currently there are thousands of these tiny moth-flies (also known as drain-flies or owl-midges) in one of the bins.

They breed in vast numbers during the early stages of composting, when the bins are less than half full....

.... and provide a food source for some of the predators that live in the bins, like this small spider that has an egg cocoon under the bin lid.

The bins are home to a lot of slugs, that consume decaying plant material and are useful all the time they stick to this diet, though in spring they become a nuisance if they consume seedlings in the garden. 

To minimise that risk I raise plants in posts until they are large enough to show some degree of slug resistance when I plant them out in the garden.

A black snake millipedes, that feeds on the decaying plant material and probably on some of the fungi too.

As the composting proceeds and the bin contents become drier the numbers of these minute springtails increase. When you lift the lids they pole-vault into the air, using the special structure called a furcula under their tail end.

And finally ...... the most important recyclers of all, brandling worms Eisenia fetida. When composting is at its peak there are hundreds of these in each bin. 

Much of the compost that ends up in the garden has probably passed through the digestive system of one of these worms.

Cold-Blooded and Spineless

Last Friday saw the launch of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Cold-Blooded and Spineless project. Over the next five years it will train volunteers and local wildlife groups to identify and map the distribution of invertebrate animals in the AONB, as well as working with schools and artists to encourage them to appreciate and celebrate the wealth of  smaller elements in the wildlife of the region.

You can read much more about the project at http://www.northpennines.org.uk/Pages/Cold-bloodedandSpineless.aspx

After the various presentations at the launch, held at the Environmental Centre at Harehope Quarry near Frosterley in Weardale, we went on a short bug hunt. Predictably, there weren't many flying insects about in mid-March, although someone did catch this male mosquito with rather magnificent antennae.

But when we started turning over stones it was a different story.

Lots of ants

A common pygmy woodlouse Trichoniscus pusillus

I think this one is a young specimen of the common shiny woodlouse Oniscus asellus

Lots of black snake millipedes Tachypodoiulus niger

More millipedes, that I've yet to identify

Two very small snails, awaiting identification

Several species of springtail. In the picture above, showing the underside, you can see the forked furca folded under the tail, that it uses like a pole-vaulter's pole to catapult itself into the air.

Click here for more about springtails

A very fine devil's coach horse, with a formidable pair of needle-sharp jaws

Click here for more about devil's coach horses

Numerous ground beetles, including ....

..... this one that played possum when it was turned onto its back, and ... 

.... this one, that was carrying a hitch-hiker on its back, which ...

... looks like it might be a very small tick.

I haven't had time to ID these properly yet, but am posting them now so that those who found them can download the pictures.

It's amazing what you can find if a dozen people spend half an hour turning over stones, even if it is a cold March afternoon!

If you'd like to know more about the Cold-blooded and Spineless project, or would like to become involved, contact samantha@northpenninesaonb.org.uk 

Lowlife

A couple of months ago I stacked some old broken fence panels on the soil at the bottom of the garden and when I moved them today I found they were sheltering all sorts of interesting soil invertebrates.Two species are illustrated below.

This wonderfully articulated centipede was living in the soil under the wood. Judging by the number of pairs of legs, I think it must be Haplophilus subterraneus, which has between 77 and 83 pairs. The books say that it sometimes glows in the dark if it's disturbed at night, so I might go back and have another look later tonight.

These are springtails - possibly Folsomia candida. There were thousands of them, probably eating fungi that were growing on the decaying wood panels. 

Springtails are noted for their ability to hurl themselves into the air using a spring-loaded appendage called a furcula under their tail. If you've never seen a springtail jump, take a look at this clip from David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth


For some more, higher magnification images of springtails, click here

For some detailed information on the Collembola - the subclass of six-legged invertebrates to which springtails belong, click here

Take a look at Steve Hopkin's wonderful web site for ID photos of springtail species and for some truly stunning pictures of these tiny animals take a look at this Flickr gallery belonging to Eddie the Bug Man (Eddie Nurcombe)