SPRINGTAILI've lived in the country for most of my life. In my youth, I spent a lot of time outside trekking through the woods and fields around my home. I've seen a lot of the creatures that live there. Large and small. One creature I'd never seen (or for that matter heard of) came to my attention a few years ago.
Winter had come early that year. There was freshly fallen snow on the ground and I was outside getting ready to shovel it. On top of the snow near the garage, I saw what appeared to be soot. It was as though a car had been running and the exhaust had stained the snow leaving a few square feet of gray. I knew this was not possible. I bent over to get a closer look. It appeared that the "soot" was moving, almost alive. I thought my myopic eyes were playing tricks. I knelt down and put my face within inches of the "soot". It was moving. I thought how strange this is. There's snow on the ground and there is what appears to be a colony of tiny insects performing some sort of insect ritual on the top of the snow. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. Insects so tiny that their individual form could not be discerned. The only key to their presence was the movement. A graphite gray mass, alive and moving. Most of the movement was some sort of milling around. Surprisingly, some of these tiny (and I mean tiny) creatures were jumping high into the air. Well, it was what must have been high to these tiny creatures. Maybe three inches. Not bad for an animal that could barely be seen. I remarked to myself to make sure to check this out in one of my reference books when I went back inside.
I went off and began shoveling the driveway. During a break in my work, I returned to observe my little friends. When I got to the spot where I had seen them, they were gone. Thinking they couldn't have gone too far, I looked around for them. The "soot" was now about five feet from where I had originally seen it. They were migrating. Some strange mass exodus in the snow. I watched for a while but could not detect any progress of the colony across the snow. I returned to my shoveling.
I was outside for an hour or so, and I returned repeatedly to examine their progress. Over the course of my time outside, the little creatures moved about five feet. All together, all in one mass. Like the "soot" was being slowly blown across the surface of the snow.
I went inside. I tried to find some reference to these strange little guys in some books. No luck.
On a later venture outside, I tried to find them. I looked around the area and could not see them. As I walked around to the back door, I spotted them. They were now thirty of forty feet away from where I had originally seen them. Still en mass, still moving from some unknown point of origin toward some unknown destination.
The next day I phoned the County Extension Service to see if they could help me resolve my mini-mystery as to what these creatures were. The County Extension Service is a somewhat anachronistic remnant of the old days. They're a virtual fountain of knowledge of country life. My tomatoes have a bug, what can I do sort of thing. I reached one of their sage councils and described to him what I had seen. "Oh, those are springtails" he said immediately.
Armed with a name for these strange beings, I was able to research them properly. They're of the order Collembola. They're most commonly called "Snow Flea", although they're not a flea at all. On their underside they have a forked tail pointing toward their head. Their tail is almost as long as their body. The tail is the source of their "spring". With a flick of this tail, the little bug is flung high into the air, something like a person jumping up to the height of a four story building. The book was in error though. It indicated that the springtail is one tenth of an inch in length. My observation told a different story. The wonderful little jumping machine is probably one fifth of that size. A mere twenty thousandths of an inch long (0.5mm). The length equivalent to the width of four human hairs. Like finely ground black pepper.
I've since observed my little friends many times over the years. Occasionally, I see them in the snow, but more often it's in the fall as I'm moving around the yard doing fall sort of things. I'd see them and stop and watch for a while. I go off and return later to monitor their progress across the yard. The mass is usually no more than a few square feet in area, and moves in unison to what I suspect is their winter home.
This year it was different. In early afternoon, I noticed the telltale sooty color in the back yard. At first, the size of the stain threw me off. It was very large. I thought is was some sort of mold or mildew (we've had a wet season). I knelt down to look. Sure enough, it was my little friends. This time there had to be millions. The mass stretched out across the yard from tree line to tree line. At its' widest, it was two to three feet. At its' narrowest, maybe four of five inches. The real surprise was that the observable portion of this exodus was about forty feet long. Millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of these wonderful little creatures in a giant (by bug standards) parade. An insect conga line stretching across the bug equivalent of a hundred miles. The strange event lasted all day. A gray wave of life snaking off toward their equivalent of Miami.
I went back repeatedly during the day to observe the seemingly never ending parade. At dusk, they were still on the march.
It's the next day as I sit writing this, the parade still goes on. Never ceasing, never changing in size. Only their path varies. Subtle changes, a foot to the left, a foot to the right.
I feel compelled to phone the sage again and see what this portends for the up-coming winter.
SPRINGTAIL