Tails of spring – springtails!

Jun 11, 2016 • 6:50 AM UTC

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Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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At the BioX science day today; we setup a PrakashLab booth where everyone could come and talk to lab members. Although; things started slowly – eventually it picked up pace. During this time; Christine caught a fantastic sample which – from first glance – looked like an ant. It was alive and stuck to tape in a paper slide. Take a look yourself.

Now, the surprising part comes in when I looked at the tail region. What do you see here?

It clearly looks like a tail; and was moving back and forth in a live organism.
The tail acts like a little spring, which gets tucked under the legs. At the right moment – the tail (spring) is released leading to a massive jump equivalent to a human being jumping as high as an Eiffel Tower.
Can you imagine just standing on your feet, and thinking of jumping a 5-6 level (~ Eiffel Tower) tall building. But in terms of body length; springtails do this jump with almost no effort.

Shout out to Christine Kurihara; another Foldscope user for discovering and carefully mounting this incredible sample. Here is a little clip of when/where she found it.

In the past, I have also shared another species of spring tails that jump on the surface of water – you might enjoy comparing notes between these two species:
Jumping spring tails – Foldscope on a mountain top

Link
INaturalist cross post here: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3432705
Cheers
Manu
Ps: David Attenborough – a hero for every naturalist; has a tiny segment on spring tail jumps. It’s shot so well, that I could not resist sharing it. Next time; I have to look for this “grooming fluid dispenser”!! Once you see this video, life will never be the same again.