Glacier flea
| Glacier flea | ||||||||||||
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A group of glacier fleas collected on Tiefenbachferner, Tyrol, Austria |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Desoria saltans | ||||||||||||
| Nicolet , 1841 |
The glacier flea ( Desoria saltans , sometimes also Isotoma saltans ) is a six- pod from the order of the springtails . D. saltans is considered the ultimate glacier flea, but several collembola species that draw attention to themselves on snow surfaces due to their dark body color, the jumping mode of locomotion and often also due to their massive occurrence are referred to as glacier fleas. These include, for example, Desoria nivalis (formerly also: Isotoma pseudomaritima ) or Vertagopus alpinus .
D. saltans grows to 1.5 - 2.5 mm and lives on glaciers and snowy areas in the Alps , where it grazes on blown substances ( cryoconite , pollen and plant residues) and snow algae of the genus Chlamydomonas . The deep black colored animal can easily be made out on the light background and often appears in large numbers on the surface during the melting period. The conspicuous escape reaction , in which glacier fleas use their jump fork , earned the species its trivial name , although it is not a flea but a Collembola . With the help of different sugars , the glacier flea produces a kind of antifreeze that enables it to survive at 10 to 15 ° C below zero. Temperatures above +12 ° C are fatal for glacier fleas, their preferred ambient temperature is around 0 ° C. The animals, which can live for several years, live on the glacier ice on accumulations of water, in the crevice system of the ice and in the boundary layer between the ice and the overlying snow cover. They are often found under stones that have melted slightly in the ice. They feed on algae and organic substances that are blown in, such as pollen .
The generic name of the glacier flea was chosen by Nicolet in honor of the discoverer, the Swiss naturalist Édouard Désor .
See also
literature
- Eduard Handschin (1924): The collembola fauna of the Swiss National Park. Memoranda of the Swiss Natural Research Society 60: 89–174.
- Mikhail Potapov (2001): Synopses on Palearctic Collembola Part III: Isotomidae. Treatises and reports from the Natural History Museum Görlitz 73: 1–603.
Web links
- Fauna Europaea - Desoria saltans Nicolet
- Insects.ch - Glacier flea (Desoria Saltans; Isotoma Saltans)
- Simply Science.ch - A life in the ice - the heroic glacier flea
Individual evidence
- ↑ H. Franz & E. Sertl-Butschek (1954): order Collembola; in: H. Franz, The Northeast Alps in the mirror of their land animal world. Innsbruck: Wagner, 579-641.
- ↑ H. Kopezki (1988): On the biology of two high alpine Collembola - Isotomurus pallipes (Uzel, 1891) and Isotoma saltans (Nicolet, 1841). Zoological yearbooks for systematics 115: 405-439.
- ^ H. Nicolet in Desor (1841): Note sur le Desoria saltans, insecte de la famille des Podurelles. Bibliothèque universelle de Genève (nouvelle série) 32: 384-387.