I can definitely see how these tiny and very odd creatures along with their comical antics could spark an interest in arthropods as a whole. I never really got into this these guys until around a month ago when I found some large and beautiful Tomocerus sp. and Orchesella villosa, since then I've developed a large appreciation for them and plan on culturing some of the more interesting species in my area. Awesome, would be cool to see what other species you have over there too, any other large species or globulars?Nice post!
I find springtails fascinating, in fact I got interested in them before I got interested in roaches and other insects, although I have never cultured them in captivity (other than the ones I inevitably find in my house plant pots, though I'm not sure that really counts!). We have a lot of them in the garden here in the UK (we have four huge oak trees so lots of leaf litter for them!) including Orchesella cincta. There is a lot of debate about whether they are still considered insects and some taxonomists now put them in a separate category altogether, albeit related.
If you don't already know of him by far the best and most knowledgeable person on the internet (and probably in the world!) about collembola is Frans Janssens from the University of Antwerp - his site http://www.collembola.org is an absolute gold mine of information about these little creatures! You will probably be able to identify your unknown Hypogastura from there - if not drop Frans a mail, he is very helpful and can usually identify them from photos, often to species level.
This photo site is also useful for identification and simply seeing the sheer variety of these tiny creatures out there - Frans also frequents the site and identifies quite a lot of the springtails in the photos:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/334033@N24/pool/
For what it's worth, the "dark morph" of Orchesella cincta are the males, and the more mottled brown ones are females, so if you have a mix of those they should breed for you
We have quite a few in the UK including some of the larger Tomoceridae and globulars too, although I have only seen the elongate species in our garden (Entomobrya and Orchesella species). My favourite UK species is Pogonognathellus longicornis which is a large (well, for a springtail - 6mm!) elongate species that has a fascinating and (I think, anyway!) endearing trait - when blown on gently it can curl its very long antennae into cute little spirals, as the photos on the link below show:
Cool, love the globulars as well as any large, unusual, or colorful species. Those are amazing, I really hope to stumble upon a Pogonognathellus sp. one day, would love to try my hand at culturing them!We have quite a few in the UK including some of the larger Tomoceridae and globulars too, although I have only seen the elongate species in our garden (Entomobrya and Orchesella species). My favourite UK species is Pogonognathellus longicornis which is a large (well, for a springtail - 6mm!) elongate species that has a fascinating and (I think, anyway!) endearing trait - when blown on gently it can curl its very long antennae into cute little spirals, as the photos on the link below show:
http://urweb.roehampton.ac.uk/collembola/taxonomy/(350TOlon).html
I think this is the only UK species that can do this, although I believe Pogonognathellus flavescens may be able to bend its antennae to a lesser extent.
Good luck with breeding your Orchesella cincta, do keep us up to date on how you get on