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Neelipleona
The Neelipleona contain the smallest species out of all the springtails, apart from, perhaps, Mackenziella, as well as containing only around 45 species in six genera. They are all cryptic, lacking pigment or eyes.
All the Neelidae have an unusual head down against the wind manner, with truncated antennae though long enough still to have contact with the soil surface. Hopkin famously once referred to Megalothorax minimus as 'a tiny old man hunched in a baggy coat'. It's an apt a description as any.
Neelus murinus, cellar, East Pennard, Somerset, UK
Neelus murinus Tairua, New Zealand /May 2014
Neelus murinus Launceston, Tasmania, Australia March 2014
Neelus species Mexico City, Mexico, Oct 2016
Neelides species are the only members of the Neelipleona that have colour- variations on a bluish-grey pigment. The undescribed Australian Neelides species in the first two photos below have the brightest blue I've seen in the genus. They are always under 1mm big, though sharing a similar body shape to Neelus.
Neelides sp. Westbury, Tasmania, Australia, 2014
Neelides sp. Westbury, Tasmania, Australia, 2014
Neelides minutus, East Pennard, Somerset, UK February 2015
Neelides minutus East Pennard Somerset UK Feb 2015
Neelides minutus July 2015 Annapolis, Nova Scotia, Canada
Neelides species, N. Queensland, Australia
Neelides minutus East Pennard, UK 2015
Neelides species, Tasmania, Australia, 2014
The Megalothorax genus and the few other closely related genera are the smallest in the Neelidae, no more than 0.6mm at their largest but usually much smaller. Like Neelus, they have no pigment, instead having the white and orange associated with cave and deep leaf litter/soil Collembola. On older specimens, like the Megalothorax minimus below, dorsal patterning can be seen.
Megalothorax minimus Dundon, Somerset UK Jan 2014
Megalothorax minimus East Pennard Somerset UK Feb 2015
Megalothorax incertus juvenile Tairua NZ Feb 2014
Megalothorax incertus adult Tairua NZ Feb 2014
Megalothorax minimus Compton Dundon UK 2014
Megalothorax minimus East Pennard, 21st February 2015
Megalothorax species, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia Mar 2014
poss. Zelandothorax novaezealandiae Punakaiki, NZ May 2014