More About Me

My name is Ryne and I’m the founder of Springtails US. I’m 22 years old, Catholic, the father of an amazing little boy, and the fiancé of the beautiful stay at home mother of my child. I live in Illinois. I opened Springtails US in 2022 and still run it entirely by myself.

Me and Henry when he was only a few days old and I was still roughed up from sleepless nights ;)

I became fascinated with springtails while making YouTube videos on ecospheres. The ecospheres I created were self sustaining sealed ecosystems created entirely from the plants and materials I could find in my local environment. The main subject of my videos was the bugs that made themselves known, and the ones that really caught my eye were springtails.

When trying to ID some springtails for a video, I stumbled upon the late Frans Janssens on BugGuide. His passion influenced me beyond measure and I soon became more fascinated with springtails than anything else. The finishing touch was when I was sledding on January 2nd 2021. The untouched snow looked to be covered in dust, which bamboozled my sister, best friend, and I. Eventually I bent down to take a look and saw the dust jumping! I realized the hillside was covered in millions of springtails (snow fleas) and my interest in springtails became a passion.

Throughout 2021 I began experimenting with culturing my local springtails. I still have a ton to learn to this day but back then my attempts were typically pretty poorly done. I tried charcoal at first and realized the majority of springtails couldn’t be cultured with that method. I settled on using soil and started to have success with a wide range of species. My favorite OG cultures were open topped and quite naturalistic, housing many springtail species. I had never thought of using gasket bins so my shelves were lined with the desiccated corpses of escapees.

Around October 2021 I started posting photos of my springtails on the isopod subreddit, realizing that there was an established hobby which may also enjoy my niche interests. Interest in my springtails grew and I did a trade for isopods with the legendary ezyeddie. The seed that I could take my hobby further was planted.

On a now defunct Facebook account I started posting that my springtails were available in the “Springtails” group. My favorite moment was when, because I had species most had never seen, I was accused of being a potential scammer. I responded something along the lines of, “You can think that, but I plan on making a name for myself around here.”

My original shipping methods were terrible! In my first trade with ezyeddie I shipped in a padded envelope! But I copied Eddie and started using insulation and Phase 22 Cryopaks, later Uline cold packs, and developed my own successful shipping style.

In March 2022 I opened www.springtails.us. Isopods never interested me nearly as much but I appreciate them, especially the “common” species and their morphs, and they eventually got added to my site as well. I also created a large product line, most popular being my affordable Springtail Clay. Though these days I’m so stinking busy that it’s hard to keep anything but the bugs in stock regularly.

Throughout my entire history up until the summer of 2024 I leaned on the collembologist Frans Janssens quite heavily. The other top hobbyists innovating springtail keeping corresponded with him a lot as well. His impact on collembology and the springtail hobby cannot be overstated. When I found out he passed in November of 2024 it affected me deeply. Frans Janssens was the entire reason Springtails US, and the springtail hobby as we know it, got started. I hear his site collembola.org will be taken down or updated soon so I encourage everybody to explore his incredible life project while you can.

I started dating my now-fiancée Anna when we were just 15. I could talk endlessly about us but that may be a breach of privacy! I used to be an atheist (though baptized as an infant), later “spiritual”, and eventually we came to Jesus Christ together in 2024. Later that year we got engaged after finding out she was pregnant with our son Henry. In early 2025 we came to the Catholic Church and our son was born in June of 2025. Catholic theology is one of my main interests outside of springtails and I spend a great deal of my time studying it (typically in the form of listening to apologetics or theology videos/podcasts while I work).

My faith has changed my view on springtails a bit. I see them as an expression of God’s infinite creativity and love. He saw fit to create tens of thousands of springtail species, a micro world that we can explore for centuries to come! I find it to be quite beautiful to say the least ;)

I’m a pretty introverted person. I struggle to keep up with people as any of my online friends can attest to! And I no longer use social media outside of the Springtails US Facebook page as it is taxing spiritually and mentally. But springtails bring my passion out and sharing my knowledge with others is one of my greatest joys. I’m engaged with the scientific community in research projects and I hope to delve deeper into educational endeavors via YouTube soon. Running Springtails US solo plus family life keeps me quite busy so no promises on when I may finally get around to regular YouTube uploads!

If you made it this far I appreciate you wanting to learn more about me and my business :) I wanted to put a face to the name and share the main points of my springtail story. It’s funny, people often assume Springtails US is a large operation… and that I’m a woman from email correspondence alone hahaha.

Anyways, that’s me!