Collembola

Thesaurus

Noun

Collembola - minute wingless arthropods: springtailsorder Collembolaanimal order - the order of animalsclass Hexapoda, class Insecta, Hexapoda, Insecta - insects; about five-sixths of all known animal speciescollembolan, springtail - any of numerous minute wingless primitive insects possessing a special abdominal appendage that allows the characteristic nearly perpetual springing pattern; found in soil rich in organic debris or on the surface of snow or water

Translations

коллембола

Collembola

[kə′lem·bə·lə] (invertebrate zoology) The springtails, an order of primitive insects in the subclass Apterygota having six abdominal segments.

Collembola

(springtails), an order of primitively wingless insects. Many taxonomists treat the Collembola as a special class. Springtails range in length from 0.2 to 2 mm; rarely are they as long as 5 to 10 mm. There are soil forms of Collembola, such as Tullbergia, which have unpigmented skin and a homonomously dissected abdomen and lack eyes and spring. Such semi-soil types as Istoma have a weakly developed spring, while forms that inhabit the forest litter, for example, Tomocerus, have a strong spring and well-developed eyes. Forms such as Sminthurus, which live on plants, have a well-developed spring, eyes, a fused body, and tracheas.

Springtails are very common in woods, steppes, and meadows; hundreds of thousands of them are found per sq m. Most are saprophagans or feed on the mycelium of fungus; there are also predators and scavengers. Springtails play a large part in soil formation and in the cycle of materials in an ecosystem. Some live on the surface of water (fresh waters and sea), and there are numerous cave forms. Some species, for example, Sminthurus viridis, damage plants, particularly legumes. Fossil springtails have been traced to Devonian deposits.

REFERENCES

Opredelitel’ nasekomykh Evropeiskoi chasti SSSR, vol 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1964.
Zhizn’ zhivotnykh, vol 3. Moscow, 1969.
Bei-Bienko, G. Ia. Obshchaia entomologiia, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1971.
Gisin, H. Collembolenfauna Europas. Geneva, 1960.
Stach, J. The Apterygotan Fauna of Poland in Relation to the World Fauna of This Group of Insects, vols. 1–9. Kraków, 1947–63.

M. S. GILIAROV

Collembola

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REFERENCES

Collembola

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Synonyms for Collembola

noun minute wingless arthropods: springtails

Synonyms

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