Biology
Legs and ventral tube of Sminthurus viridis on slide-mounted specimen, stained with carmine. From Natural History Museum’s collection. © Natural History Museum, London, Francisca Sconce
Like all springtails, Sminthurus viridis has an incomplete or ‘hemimetabolous’ lifecycle where there are no larval or pupal lifestages (like the Orthoptera and Hemiptera).
Males and females have a primitive courtship, then the male lays a spermatophore, which the female uses to fertilise her eggs (0.3mm diameter).
The eggs are laid in batches of 2–40 eggs and hatch 26–42 days later into first instars (0.75mm in length).
Instars then go through 7 successive moults, increasing in size each time, up to 3mm in length.
Adults live for around 15 days.
The timing of egg hatching and instar moulting is influenced by environmental conditions such as temperature and rainfall.
