Springtails, small bugs often found crawling through leaf litter and garden soil, are expert jumpers. Inspired by these hopping hexapods, roboticists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of ...

The next time you’re near a pond or creek, bend down and take a closer look—you just might see tiny insect-like organisms, not much bigger than the width of a spaghetti strand, taking incredible leaps ...

Globular springtails (Dicyrtomina minuta) are small bugs about five millimetres long that can be seen crawling through leaf litter and garden soil. While they do not have wings and cannot fly, they ...

You may not know what a springtail is but man, those little things can jump! Scientists have now copied the creatures' jumping mechanism in a small robot that could one day explore places that people ...

Editor’s note: This story was updated Nov. 9, 2022. Springtails look chaotic to the untrained eye. Whether on a balmy pond or melting snow, the miniscule creatures are, true to their name, constantly ...

Springtails are about the size of a pinhead, but they can control their jumps like seasoned acrobats. By Oliver Whang Among the wonders of the natural world that few people have ever noticed: a ...

Most pet owners can deal with fleas, and many homeowners can identify ants inside the home or out. However, many gardeners are unfamiliar with an insect that looks like an ant and jumps like a flea.

This winter has brought plenty of cold weather and snow, but the recent warm spell gives hope that spring is coming. Warming weather also brings out one of the most common land insects in our area, ...

A tiny garden bug has been dubbed the real-life Sonic the Hedgehog because it does the fastest backflips on the planet. The "insanely fast" globular springtail completes a full body rotation in less ...

When it comes to spin-jumping creatures, Sonic the Hedgehog might spring to mind. But the video game character pales in comparison to one backyard bug, which claims the title as the fastest flipping ...