Snow fleas

Outdoor Life Hunt | Fish | Trap
#1

WTH

Yesterday noticed these little guys all over the snow, heaviest in footprints

got the camera out today, none of the pics really turned out

all that black is little bugs

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seems they have built in antifreeze

at least they don’t bite

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#2

So don’t eat the black snow either…

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#3

What the hell? I’ve never heard of that before. Useless little bugs. Kill them with fire.

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#4

Same here. I grew up in Michigan and spent my entire childhood outdoors. Never noticed them.

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#5

Time for a flame thrower. Melt the snow no fleas.

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#6

Do they get on the dog?

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#7

I would trade them for the fleas we get on the dogs and cats down here if they don’t bite. I just don’t want the snow.

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#8

I have seen them a lot. Hahahha kinda cute.

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#9

I can recall seeing these black spots in the snow, but have never once bothered to get close enough to investigate.

Now that I know… yeah, burn it with fire! :slight_smile:

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#10

Would require melting all the snow, they’re everywhere,

no, haven’t seen them on us or our dog

That article says

researchers say that they are more closely related to crustaceans

so I guess I’ll need to do a lot of harvesting for a MI crab boil :persevere:

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#11

That is really interesting! Thank you @Robert

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#12

So your yard has crabs? Yep you need a flame thrower.

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#13

We got em here in Northern Wyoming.
Not yet though.
Spring thaw.
From late April to around the end of May when they finally bust the highway open.
I think they are weevils that live in the trees.
They have a sort of long body.
And the can bounce around.
Birds don’t seem to eat them.

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#14

a polarized filter on your camera might help…my Dad knew all about that stuff

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#15

Hard to sneak onto the range with that big new shooter badge huh?

Tell you what, you make an intro post and tell us about that and I’ll share my crappy camera experiences as I surely need a new one :upside_down_face:

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#16

Your crappy camera photos look fine to me. :grinning: :+1:

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#17

I was watching for the snow fleas when the snow melted. I never found any. I guess we don’t have them here in Southern/Central Michigan. It could be related to soil type perhaps? I have clay soil here in cornfield country. Northwest Michigan has more sandy soils. I don’t know for sure.

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#18

If these are the same springtails that I’ve seen in YouTube, they are near-essential to making a healthy terrarium. They help to clean up rot and turn it into fertilizer. Apparently they give the terrarium a forest smell. Without the springtails eating the garbage, it smells like rot and decay.

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#19

Wow, didn’t know that, makes sense we had millions then given all the oak leaves dropped

Thanks for the update :+1:

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