by Piter Kehoma Boll
Insects and their six-legged relatives are predominantly land and freshwater species, with very few living in the sea. One of these few species is the springtail Anurida maritima, known as the seashore springtail because this is exactly where it is found.
The preferred habitat of the seashore springtail are rocky or muddy shores with crevices where they can hide when the tide gets high. They are found especially in the Atlantic coast of Europe and North America, but can reach the southern portions of South America and Africa as well.
During the low tide, they walk around the shore looking for food, which consists mostly of dead animals, especially gastropods. The seashore springtail is, in fact, considered a very important scavenger where it occurs. About one hour before the tide gets high or when the sky darkens because rain is coming, they run toward the crevices that they inhabit and where they build their nests. Since their behavior is governed by the tide and not the day, they have a circatidal rhythm that lasts about 12.4 hours, which helps adjust it as the tide slightly changes from one day to the next as the moon moves around the earth.
They prefer places that get protected from the water current, especially where there are roots or other vegetative structures that increase protection and surface. Hundreds of springtails can get together in a single nest and get surrounded by a large air bubble when the seawater fills the space. And there they wait until the tide gets low again. They also use those nests to molt and lay their eggs, thousands of them, forming a sort of collective nest.
During winter, they all die and let only their eggs behind. In spring the eggs hatch and the shore gets full of them again, all eager to explore and eat as many dead snails as possible.
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References:
Joosse, E. N. (1966). Some observations on the biology of Anurida maritima (Guérin),(Collembola). Zeitschrift für Morphologie und ökologie der Tiere, 57(3), 320-328. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00407599
King, P., Pugh, P. J. A., Fordy, M. R., Love, N., & Wheeler, S. A. (1990). A comparison of some environmental adaptations of the littoral collembolans Anuridella marina (Willem) and Anurida maritima (Guérin). Journal of Natural History, 24(3), 673-688. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222939000770461
Manica, A., McMeechan, F. K., & Foster, W. A. (2001). An aggregation pheromone in the intertidal collembolan Anurida maritima. Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 99(3), 393-395. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.709.8452&rep=rep1&type=pdf
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Earthling Nature 