Meet the springtails: little-known fantastic beasts that live everywhere on Earth

By Mark Stevens, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Adelaide University
Cyrille D’Haese, Entomologist, Sorbonne Université

In virtually every piece of land on Earth – from near the summit of Mount Everest to Antarctica to caves nearly 2,000 metres underground – live tiny critters that have shaped the health of our planet for hundreds of millions of years.

They are known as springtails – an ancient group of invertebrates that evolved along with mosses and lichens dating back to more…

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