Deuterosminthurus pallipes

Despite a lack of information about the family to which this species belongs (we are not 100% sure on its identification), the species itself is regularly mentioned on wildlife sites. It even starred in David Attenboroughs ‘Life in the Undergrowth’, showing off it’s little mating dance it is famous for.

In comes in two colour forms, yellow as shown above and a purple colour. These colour form have nothing to do with gender and if a yellow and purple couple get together the offspring with be either yellow or purple, no colour blending occurs.

Below is our little specimen in a youtube short, filmed under a macro lens x15 and still just a speck. Ideally we need to get one under our microscope as you can confirm the species by examining the eye.

In the Garden:

We are not 100% sure what these guys feed on, but ultimately it is likely to be present somewhere in the Garden. The fellow above, as with so many other invertebrates we record, was found on Oxeye Daisy. We suspect we have simply been over-looking this species to date.