Searching for Isopods and Springtails....

B

Bamboo

Fifth Instar
I go hiking and photographing herps just about every weekend. It's been raining and humid here this last month and looks like a wet month this month as well.... I've flip rocks and logs off the trails and I find no isopods. Obviously I'm doing it wrong? I would love some tips on how to collect local isopods and even springtails ?

Thanks !!!!

 
Sometimes you're lucky and other times not. I've flipped over plenty of rocks and logs that I felt should have had isopods, but for some reason I wasn't able to find any. Keep looking around and you'll find some! :) You can try peeling bark on rotting logs too to find some species of isopod and you should turn up some sprintails too (and maybe a pseudoscorpion!).

 
I'm going to cheat a bit and use a few medium size pieces of cardboards from boxes ... I soaked them for a few min to get them nice and water logged .... I'm going to go to some sites, space them out sporadically , and slightly bury them with some leaf litter around the pieces... and check back on my sites in four days. Not sure if this will work..... LOL ...

 
Hi Bamboo, my captive colonies love cardboard especially when it is a bit damp. You could sprinkle a little fish flake under the cardboard too, if you have any lying around that is. Let us know what you find, I love the fieldwork stories on this forum!

All the best from Bill. :D

 
Hi again, did the cardboard technique work for you? I laid some traps like you suggested, I thought it was a great idea. I laced the undersides of the cardboard with brewers yeast, but I put the traps down in the hottest few days of June, and they just curled up and blew away. Hopefully you've had more success? Would love to hear how your experiment went.

All the best from Bill. :D

 
Whether you see them or not, there's always gonna be springtails in damp soil. Usually terrariums end up with springtails regardless of whether they were introduced deliberately.

 
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