{"id":128221,"date":"2026-10-09T14:55:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=128221"},"modified":"2026-10-09T14:55:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:25:27","slug":"new-species-of-springtails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/new-species-of-springtails\/","title":{"rendered":"New Species of Springtails"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>New Species of Springtails Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists recently discovered two new species of tiny soil-dwelling creatures called springtails named Folsomia ciega and Folsomia unioculata in the Nilgiri Hills of the Western Ghats, taking the number of known species of the genus Folsomia in India to 13. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Folsomia ciega and Folsomia unioculata<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are two new species of <\/span><b>tiny soil-dwelling creatures<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> called <\/span><b>springtails<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They were discovered in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/nilgiri-hills\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>Nilgiri Hills<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the <\/span><b>Western Ghats.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both species belong to the <\/span><b>genus Folsomia.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Folsomia ciega<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, named after the Spanish word for \u2018blind\u2019, <\/span><b>lacks eyes entirely.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a<\/span><b> small, pale,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>elongated springtail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> measuring about 1 mm and is distinguished by the arrangement of bristles and a <\/span><b>two-pronged tail structure called a mucro.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Folsomia unioculata, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">meaning \u2018one-eyed\u2019 in Latin, has a<\/span><b> single eye on each side of its head.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It grows up to 1.3 mm and differs from related species that either have multiple eyes or are completely blind.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What are Springtails?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Springtails (Collembola) are <\/span><b>tiny insect-like creatures.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are one of the <\/span><b>world\u2019s tiniest arthropods,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> measuring up to 0.2 mm in length. The largest springtail you could find is just about 10 mm long.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They <\/span><b>lack wings,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><b>body <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is <\/span><b>divided into three parts: head (with short antennae), thorax, and abdomen.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Six legs, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">short antennae, and a <\/span><b>soft, elongated, or circular body <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">distinguish these tiny organisms.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Springtails are creamy <\/span><b>white or grey in colour,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with some having y<\/span><b>ellow, orange, metallic green, or red scales.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their <\/span><b>skin has comb-like hexagonal or rhombic granules<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that are <\/span><b>water repellent <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and self-cleaning. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newindianexpress.com\/states\/tamil-nadu\/2026\/Oct\/09\/two-new-species-of-springtails-discovered-by-scientists-in-nilgiris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>NIE<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Folsomia ciega and Folsomia unioculata are two new species of tiny soil-dwelling creatures called springtails. Read more about New Species of Springtails, Discovery, Habitat, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":128196,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10768],"class_list":["post-128221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-new-species-of-springtails","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128221"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128255,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128221\/revisions\/128255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}