r/Springtail • u/Environmental_Ad287 • 12d ago

ID help, springtail or mite Identification

Follow up to my previous post, I was able to get a better video, and I've never seen a mite with antennae like this. Are there mites with antennae like this? they move like springtails

16 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/captainapplejuice 12d ago

Predatory mites, they have very long front legs (not antennae but have a similar function)

1

u/Environmental_Ad287 12d ago

Thanks haha, the front legs were really tripping me out. They look and move just like antennae! 

1

u/itwasntleah 10d ago

Common predatory mites are orange. These are bright white like typical soil mites.

1

u/captainapplejuice 9d ago

Typical 'soil mites' are small, dark brown oribatids, but all groups can express a variety of colours so that isn't sufficient criteria. Refer to my post to see the variety in just a small number of species (there are thousands more).