Anurida maritima, the seashore springtail or rock springtail, is a cosmopolitan springtail of the intertidal zone. It is often found in aggregations of up to several hundred on the surface of Tide pool.
Description
Anurida maritima is a
Apterygota animal, typically up to 3 mm long, and dark slaty blue in colour.
Its body is roundish, expanding slightly towards the rear. The
head bears a pair of
and a single pair of antennae, the
thorax comprises three
, each of which bears one pair of
arthropod leg, while the
abdomen comprises six segments.
The entire body is covered with white
hydrophobicity hairs which allow the animal to stay above the surface of the water on which it spends much of its life. Unlike other springtails,
A. maritima cannot leap, since its furcula is
vestigiality. This is apparently because when other springtails are placed upon water,
surface tension unfolds their furcula and renders them unable to jump, so it has probably been lost by disuse.
Distribution
Anurida. maritima is found around the world on
and
. In the British Isles, it is missing from the north-east of
Scotland and has not been recorded from south-east Ireland. It is also absent from the
Baltic Sea. There have been suggestions that the animals found in northern Europe may be a different species from that found in the Mediterranean Sea.
Ecology
Anurida maritima is a significant
scavenger of the upper intertidal zone, feeding on dead animals, chiefly
(including
) and
Mollusca.
Aggregation is an important aspect of collembolan biology, and A. maritima has been shown to produce an aggregating pheromone.
In the warmer parts of its range, A. maritima is active throughout the year, but in cooler temperate regions, it is only active in the summer months, as eggs.
