# What is this bug???



## Shrimps (Mar 20, 2014)

There are several of them in my bioactive bearded dragon viv... No clue what they are or where they came from. They seem partial to a certain couple rocks. 

They are tiny, blend in almost perfectly with some rocks I have and move incredibly fast and erratically. They have six banded legs and I can't tell if they are jumping or just very fast. At first I thought maybe baby jumping spiders or leaf hoppers, but under a loupe they look sort of like crickets??

Also, I have hoards of what must be local springtails - they also move very fast and jump. They look like brown springtails from google image search... Is there anything I could be misidentifying?

iPhone camera full zoom
















(Upper left)

10x magnification









60x magnification


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## Slicer (Feb 8, 2011)

Nice magnified images pal 

They look like brown springs to me as well however, I am not sure if there is a need to get rid i.e not sure if they are a harm to Beardies... :s 

Someone who knows what they are talking about will be along soon lol


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

These are booklice or Psocoptera. 

I don't really consider these a pest unless you have epidemics of them and lots of old books with starch based spine bindings. They tend to just eat detritus, fungi, etc. otherwise.


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## lee middleton (Nov 25, 2011)

seen these in with my old dears beardies when I occasionally feed them for her. I assumed they came in with livefood but might be wrong, never caused any dramas with beardies. (I did remove them)


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## Shrimps (Mar 20, 2014)

Arg. We had an invasion (hah epidemic basically) in our basement (from the chicken mash I kept for feeders) of a different psocid last year. I was sweeping them out in heaps. They were smaller - on the scale of a white springtails and much slower. These are lightning quick. I didn't even think psocids since the body shape and movement habits are radically different from the booklice we had in the grain. 

Looking at more pictures (thanks so much for the ID GRB!) they look like maybe some sort of barkfly nymphs (going off banding, legs and antenna shape) ? (Same family) I'm judging by the wing buds - these are nymphs, which makes sense as there are bigger and smaller ones. I might have to break out the microscope tonight and go on another bug hunt. Probably I can't ID without finding an adult. Probably beside the point - but I love details :3

Anyway - Should I strive to eliminate them? I have no problem with polite commensal bugs, but I don't want a repeat of the invasion - my dragon cage is in the living room and the deal was I can do soil substrate as long and any bugs stay in the cage. I assume if I let the soil dry enough to discourage these I'll kill it and my other good bugs (springs and isopods). 

I'm a bit concerned that the other things are nymphs now (I'll try and get more pics of those too.) the weird part is they are not seeking out humidity (the ISPs and white springs keep to the leaf litter and under rocks) - these are right out in the open on the surface of rocks and the dragon cage is pretty dry (though 40-50 on the side they are at).


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

Shrimps said:


> Arg. We had an invasion (hah epidemic basically) in our basement (from the chicken mash I kept for feeders) of a different psocid last year. I was sweeping them out in heaps. They were smaller - on the scale of a white springtails and much slower. These are lightning quick. I didn't even think psocids since the body shape and movement habits are radically different from the booklice we had in the grain.
> 
> Looking at more pictures (thanks so much for the ID GRB!) they look like maybe some sort of barkfly nymphs (going off banding, legs and antenna shape) ? (Same family) I'm judging by the wing buds - these are nymphs, which makes sense as there are bigger and smaller ones. I might have to break out the microscope tonight and go on another bug hunt. Probably I can't ID without finding an adult. Probably beside the point - but I love details :3
> 
> ...


there is no way you can keep all the bugs in the enclosure, unless its air tight, its just not practical - to reduce escapes, you can use double sided stick tape, placed strategically around the *outside* of the vivarium, so any that creep out, will get trapped before they can enter the room....well...apart from the 10-50% which wont. just don't tell anyone else in the house that :lol2:


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## Shrimps (Mar 20, 2014)

CloudForest said:


> there is no way you can keep all the bugs in the enclosure, unless its air tight, its just not practical - to reduce escapes, you can use double sided stick tape, placed strategically around the *outside* of the vivarium, so any that creep out, will get trapped before they can enter the room....well...apart from the 10-50% which wont. just don't tell anyone else in the house that :lol2:


Haha yeah - I realize I can't hope to contain them all, maybe a better wording would be that the cage won't be home base for a full scale invasion. The springtails and isopods (as I understand) aren't interested in being to far from moist refuge - I've found them in the glass tracks but (so far) nowhere else in the room. ((Knock on wood))


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

Shrimps said:


> Haha yeah - I realize I can't hope to contain them all, maybe a better wording would be that the cage won't be home base for a full scale invasion. The springtails and isopods (as I understand) aren't interested in being to far from moist refuge - I've found them in the glass tracks but (so far) nowhere else in the room. ((Knock on wood))


yeah don't worry about it, tropical ones wont survive, unless you live in a tropical country - but anyway, there are millions of springtails, woodlice, mites and other creatures swarming all over your house, and everyone living in it, right now  ....probly best not to mention that either


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## Shrimps (Mar 20, 2014)

CloudForest said:


> yeah don't worry about it, tropical ones wont survive, unless you live in a tropical country - but anyway, there are millions of springtails, woodlice, mites and other creatures swarming all over your house, and everyone living in it, right now  ....probly best not to mention that either


:gasp:

I recently learned bout eyelash mites. Nope. So much nope. Still, it's super fascinating - to be honest discovering all the life in the bioactive cage is amazing to me. I'm glad I've done it just to get to see all that - a new appreciation sort of thing. Of course the lizards a health and the comfort of a largely bug free home is a bit higher priority than my invert-based entertainment.


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

I would be surprised if they persisted, but then again without IDing them properly I suppose it is possible. 

If you collect soil from outside you can get all manner of things emerging weeks afterwards; they don't tend to successfully breed however. I've had various primitive flies emerge, earwigs, Linyphids, etc.


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## Shrimps (Mar 20, 2014)

I am guessing I got them in the soil or in the rocks - for sure. Same with the brown springtails. 
I'm petty confident they are bark lice - I don't expect to get a positive ID on them but won't stop me trying. Hopefully they don't stick around - they are big enough they may be annoying. 

Adult bark louse - I couldn't keep it in focus for an image but hey have neat compound eyes. They have scaley wings so I'm thinking maybe echmepterx - maybe I'll ask a bug ID website. Lol 





Brown (local) springtail - pretty sure you can see the furcula. 



Bonus isopod


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