Zool. Also springtail, spring tail. [f. SPRING sb.1 or v.1] One or other of various species of insects that leap or spring by means of their tail.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XV. 169/1. Podura, or spring-tail,… a genus of insects of the order of aptera.
1854. Orr’s Circ. Sci., Org. Nat., I. 96. The velvet spring-tail … leaps by jerking its tail downwards from under its body.
1879. E. P. Wright, Anim. Life, 491. The springtails had, however, attracted the attention of naturalists long before that date.
