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Help identify a pesky arthropod thingy

I am trying to identify the soldiers of a recent invasion of one of my plants. There has been a discussion on this in the past, but no light was shed on the subject. People just kept on saying "oh it's prolly thrips." Well these are NOT thrips, so don't even bother.

The pests look like big fleas with long bodies. They are on average about the size of a hyphen -> - .These are not worms. They appear to jump from place to place on the surface of the 9inch pot. No damage is visible, but the main plant is RAPIDLY loosing steam and appears to be nearing it's last days. I'm not too concerned because I have heard that P.primuliflora has a tendency to be short-lived. The mother plant in question has produced and is still producing large amounts of plantlets. As a matter of fact, the surface of the pot is covered with replanted plantlets of the mother plant, which, in turn, are producing their OWN plantlets now. The new plants are vigorous and happy looking.

At first I spotted one on a ping leaf, and one or two walking around on the soil. However, it has been a couple weeks and the bugs are all over the place (no noticeable invasions into other pots yet). I guess the invaders lack common sense, or have terrible aim, because they are peppering the leaves of the P.primuliflora that lives in the pot. Normally I would not have a problem with this, but I don't know anything about the bugs. I don't know what they eat, or if they pose a potential threat to the plant.
In addition: I have had these pests on many of my CP's in the past, so I'm sure some of you would recognize them.

Thanks in advance
-Trevor
 
Sounds like regular old springtails. A few millimeters long of varying color and able to jump a few thousand times thier hieght. Harmless and good for pings. I actually culture them by the millions to feed to my frogs.

Joe
 
Sorry, forgot to answer the food question. I feed mine active dry yeast, they love it. However they will eat any decaying plant matter thrive quite well in peat moss. You should be happy to have them, sounds like they are doing a good job of feeding the pings. They don't eat live plants.

Joe
 
Thanks alot Joseph.

I forgot about springtails, your probably right. I'll look around the 'net a little for pics of the critters.
In the last couple days their population has really exploded and the pings have been *feasting* on the little tykes. As long as they to no major harm, I'm happy to have them.

'kinda cute little critters.
 
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