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Springtails?

MH1

Smile, it makes people nervous :)
Hey, Whoops, I pressed enter by accident before I typed anything! :s

Anyway, I have some small whitish bugs in some Drosera capensis pots, I would guess they are Springtails, as they do, if disturbed, jump. I can't really take a photo as they are so small, but is this what they truly are?
They are whitish coloured, possibly with antennae, and they crawl around on the soil... possibly they go into it a bit too, but I can't really tell! As I said before, they jump around... the catch is, a while ago the D.capensis dried out right after madly flowering, then got much smaller again. I guess this was natural, but now I have noticed them in the past few days. I can't really match them to any other insect... could it be anything else? They aren't on foliage, and the plant doesn't look sickly at all, it's just downsized, but is getting bigger again... could anyone confirm(ish) that these are in fact Springtails, and not something different?

Thanks a bunch! :)
 
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If they jump when disturbed they are most likely springtails. Many of the species of Collembola have a hinged tail that gives them their common name. Collembola are primarily soil dwelling. They come in many different colors and body shapes. Scroll down the page on the second link for a gallery.

Springtails are generally harmless to plants since they eat decaying organic matter but can vector some plant diseases.

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/compendium/collem.html
http://www.collembola.org/
 
Wow, thanks! I couldn't find too many photos, but I now have a wealth of them! I'm glad to have that one confirmed! They will even make a nice nutrition source when they spread >:D I would guess that they are Folsomia candida, that last site you gave me says they are from the UK, and if I could find my magnifying glass, I would be pretty certain they would look the same!

Thanks so much! My mind is put to rest, phew! Panic averted :)
 
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