05.11.18 - Shady Lane Arboretum

With only a short time available we took a quick trip out to Shady Lane Arboretum. I didn't do a lot of sampling but looking under fallen leaves on the wet grass was productive. There were lots of adult Dicyrtomina minuta, but initially I hesitated over these specimens. However on reflection, I think these are juvenile D. minuta:




Lepidocyrtus lignorum was also abundant (predominantly pale with faint traces of blue pigment on the head, thorax and legs; scales present on the legs and ant1+ant2, no scales on ant3+ant4 (c.f. L. curvicollis), eyepatch roundish (less elongate than other species):




The trickiest (for me) specimens to identify were a number of Isotomids. Frans Janssens kindly identified these as Isotomurus but also helpfully pointed out Arne Fjellberg's Pictorial key to Nordic Isotomurus (2007) on the Collembola.org website. Having worked through this I am confident that these specimens are Isotomurus unifasciatus:
i) Dark median line with diffuse lateral patches.
ii) Dark pigment on legs and sides of abdomen extends to the dorsolateral patches (c.f. I. palustris) (above).
iii) Frontoclypeal area bluish (c.f. I. graminis):