Definition of "springtail" []

• Any of various small wingless insects of the order Collembola, having abdominal appendages that act as springs to catapult them through the air. Also called collembolan. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "She felt bugs crawling under her skin, and one day, she said, she pulled a worm out of her eyeball and coughed up a springtail fly."
• "Moreover, there is experimental evidence that population densities of numerically dominant tundra Collembola (springtail) species such as '' Folsomia quadrioculata '' and '' Hypogastrura tullbergi '' can be halved following an episode of freezing rain on Spitzbergen [172]."
• "While conducting ecological inventories of 30 caves on the Colorado Plateau of northern Arizona, research by Wynne and Voyles has resulted in the discovery of at least 10 new species, including a new species of spider, a new genus of cave cricket (Family Rhaphidophoridae), possibly two new cricket species, a new barklouse (Psocoptera) species, a new beetle species, and possibly two new springtail species (Collembola)."