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Photo#1929529
Dicyrtomina Springtail - Ptenothrix maculosa

Dicyrtomina Springtail - Ptenothrix maculosa
Victoria, Capital District, British Columbia, Canada
January 5, 2020
Would appreciate any help in identifying Dicyrtomina; have made numerous observations on iNaturalist but lack the expertise to go beyond genus.

Clarification
Can you tell me what features you're using to identify this? I had previously thought this was the genus Dicyrtomina same with many other Globular Springtails I've seen in my yard, will need to go back and reassess those now and would like to know how to do so.

 
Can you tell me
what features you used to identify this as Dicyrtomina? I really do wonder, given we cannot see any diagnostic characters in your image
(due to the low quality).
In case I cannot see any morphological characters, my ID is based on pattern matching. And on 40 years of experience ;-)
Compare the pattern of your specimen with that of the many ref pictures at www.collembola.org
Select genus Ptenothrix in the Genera webpage to get an overview of the different patterns.
Just browse through the many pics of Dicyrtominae and Ptenothricinae. There are many examples of diagnostic features.
Have fun!

 
iNaturalist Suggestions
I have hardly any experience with Springtails and only just became interested in them during the latter half of quarantine so I had labeled this as Dicyrtomina based on suggestions from iNaturalist users and lack of understanding of any other possible alternatives.

Perhaps if you could provide me with a clear key for identifying Dicyrtomina I could at least go back and change my previous IDs to Globular Springtails where it's not obviously Dicyrtomina.

As for image quality yes, all I have is a small pocket lens for my iPhone and an old microscope which I don't use much, so image quality leaves much to be desired.

 
We do not have a pictorial key
for low quality images of Dicyrtomidae. You will have to check collembola.org to verify your iNaturalist specimens with our ref images. I would propose this procedure:
1. get an image from iNaturalist, check its assumed name
2. compare name with images on collembola.org
If you do not find any match : post the image on Bugguide

Pictures made by a smartphone + clip-on lens are a challenge for identifications. I'm interested to find out what the limitations are. I've done some experiments with a Samsung tablet 8Mpix camera + clip-on macrolens. The results were promising. I expect quality will become better with the new generation of camera's (32Mpix is already availabele but expensive...).

Moved

Ptenothrix maculosa ssp. olympia

Moved
Moved from Globular Springtails.

Sorry for the double move. I meant to drop this here.

Moved
Moved from ID Request.

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