Dust Speck - Bourletiella arvalis

Moved

Moved from Springtails and allies.

… Ken Wolgemuth, 1 May, 2014 - 2:27pm

Thanks

for making the command decision. ;-)

… Ashley Bradford, 1 May, 2014 - 2:48pm

Nothing to it :)

Frans's IDs are good enough for me--even if he does consider them tentative.

… Ken Wolgemuth, 1 May, 2014 - 5:26pm

Bourletiella arvalis...

typically has 7 subsegments (sometimes 6 or 8), of which the basal and the apical subsegment each bears 3 whorls of setae, while the other subsegments each bear 1 whorl of setae. Counting the whorls : 11.
This matches with your count.

… Frans Janssens, 1 May, 2014 - 12:36pm

How cool!

Thank you so much, Frans! Does that mean we have a definitive ID? :)

… Ashley Bradford, 1 May, 2014 - 1:03pm

Well, what is 'definitive'?

I prefer to call my IDs of 'photographic specimens' 'tentative' ;-)
We have a tentative ID best matching Bourletiella arvalis.

… Frans Janssens, 1 May, 2014 - 1:11pm

I see -

I wasn't certain how definitive we could get it through photos.

Since these are actually for a greater purpose than my own curiosity, I should send you a package. :-) I'll have to check whether I still have your address. I really appreciate your help!

… Ashley Bradford, 1 May, 2014 - 1:18pm

Tell me more...

about this greater purpose, pls.

… Frans Janssens, 1 May, 2014 - 1:24pm

It's two-part:

The immediate part is that I participated in a bio blitz on Saturday and am trying to get definitive IDs for everything I found or photographed, as much as possible, because they want to catalog everything that was observed. My photos from that effort are here, and I'm still adding a few since I collected some creatures I didn't yet photograph. I found a third species of sprintail there - did I ID it correctly?

The larger part is for the Maryland Biodiversity Project, which all this information will go to, where they're trying to catalog all the species of Maryland (as much as humanly possible) in whichever counties they're found to occur. I see they don't have much in the way of springtails there yet, which just encourages me to do something about that, so you may be getting more packages in the future to that end. ;-)

… Ashley Bradford, 1 May, 2014 - 1:44pm

Thanks for clarifying

Lepidocyrtus paradoxus is quite correct (but note: paradox*u*s).
Wrt the "packages in the future". Personally I'm more interested in identifying specimens on pictures. I would like to figure out how far we can go with this. So sending packages should be restricted to the minimum. Pls. ;-)

… Frans Janssens, 1 May, 2014 - 3:45pm

That works for me

if we can be certain enough for that kind of science. If it works to work it out through photos and then be certain with a package, that works for me, too. Of course, as long as I'm able to get what we need in a photo, I enjoy that part of the process. So I will continue trying to get the details in photos. :-)

… Ashley Bradford, 2 May, 2014 - 10:50am