[img]https://somegeek.home.comcast.net/garden_bug.jpg[/img]
The bug is around 1-2mm long. Took this macro shot on my kitchen counter when this fell off a plant I brought inside. Don't know if we had these before but just this last weekend we had some very warm weather (75Fº or so) and we saw these little guys all over our raised beds on the wood. A slight bump to the wood and they'd jump. They squish easily under your thumb. What are they?
Thanks,
somegeek
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cheers. I wrote a paper on collembolans for my basic invertebrate zoology course in college (years ago), and I've got a kind of soft spot for them (and, to be fair, for most insects)...the project that graduated me was an insect taxonomy paper, too. which is obviously why I now work in a grocery store.
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Is the tiny little bug a problem? Is it eating your plants? Some bugs like wood. Roaches love wood and mulch but they will not hurt the plants. I use to put mulch around the trees and bushes in the yard and we had millions of wood roaches in the yard after dark. I don't mulch anymore so we no longer have wood roaches. Unless the bug is a problem don't worry about it.
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G350, this isn't even an insect (anymore). It's been relegated to it's own class...
The one in the photo is a genus called Sminthurinae, and like all other columbolans, it is a detrivore (feeds on decaying matter), so it won't mess with plants. Some folks have talked about human interactions and how the columbolans "bite", but it turns out that when they spring off of human flesh the furcula (spring) and retiniculum (tensioner) can pinch, causing a "bite). I've been up to my eye teeth in these things and it hasn't happened to me yet, but I am thick skinned from my years on the Forums...
HG
The one in the photo is a genus called Sminthurinae, and like all other columbolans, it is a detrivore (feeds on decaying matter), so it won't mess with plants. Some folks have talked about human interactions and how the columbolans "bite", but it turns out that when they spring off of human flesh the furcula (spring) and retiniculum (tensioner) can pinch, causing a "bite). I've been up to my eye teeth in these things and it hasn't happened to me yet, but I am thick skinned from my years on the Forums...
HG