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What are these bugs???

Asbit

Asbit

So Many Morphs...
Here is the back ground and my suspicions, any confirmation and or thoughts are appreciated.

I brought my female back from the vets after her surgery for egg binding and then I started to notice this in her viv and in her water dish. No one else had them and there was only approx 3 in her viv that I could find. I killed them, cleaned her viv, replaced the paper towel and then there did not seem to be anymore in her viv.

While at the vets they kept her in a room where they normally keep cats, dogs and rabbits. All of the other kennels were empty except for one that had a rabbit in it. She was in a warm incubator type thing that she could not escape from and for substrate she had towels.

A few weeks later I found one in a different viv, I cleaned that viv and could not seem to find anymore. Now it has been a few weeks again and now I have found them in 1 more viv for sure, possibly another.

They are very very small oval shaped not round dot shaped, they are very dark I would guess black, they jump very high, they have only been in the vivs that are in my basement, they can live quite some time in the water with out drowning but can not get out on their own. I have never seen one on a snake or a shed. There are none in the scale folds under the chin of the snakes, none around the eyes.

None of us humans have bites on us, although they very much remind me of a flea, except for the antennae that these have. I just recently shaved one of my dogs and found nothing of the sort on him, and have not seen anything of the like on the other dog or the cat.

There is never very many of them. This summer the daycare children broke (irreparably) the back screen door to the patio and we have had many flies and other bugs get in.

Could they be a flea even with the antennae and not being red brown? Could they be a bug from the aspen? Could she have brought home this bug from the vet? Maybe from the rabbit or the towels that they had her in? Could they just be some benign bug from outside?

Does anyone have any ideas? Do I need to be concerned?

Thank you so much for looking.
To the right you will see an average size aspen chip for size reference, they are about 1.5 times the size of a metal pin head, but oval shaped
bugsinsnakewater2.jpg
 
I've seen bugs like that before in my house. I thought they were fleas or maybe bed bugs because I found two of them on my bed. But after killing them I never found any more of them. Plus the pictures I've seen of bed bugs didn't really match. So, I have no idea what they are either. So I can't tell you if they are something that would affect the health of your snakes or other pets.
 
@ Bitsy so if they are not a bug and I can not kill them with an insecticide and have to try to find where they are coming from and they are a temporary summer thing, do you think I need to worry about them harming my snakes or do you think they are occasionally getting into a viv because there is a water dish in there? Do you think I should just up my frequency of complete viv clean outs temporarily?
 
hmmm

Look to the right of the page and at least on my screen theres Home Tech exterminators LOL
 
If you startle them, do they "jump"? If so, they probably are springtails like bitsy said. They've got a furcula at the end of their abdomen, and it is held in place by a retinaculum. When the springtail gets startled, it releases the furcula and jumps to escape.

They generally live in soil, but they won't harm your snakes.
 
Yes, they jump when startled or if I try to catch them, otherwise they crawl around. I am going with springtails then and will not freak out. I will also try to get some of that enzyme cleaner stuff for the drains as coincidentally they started to show up around the same time as my teen started working out of town a lot and has not been using his shower which is virtually in the same room as the snake room.
 
Asbit, try sevin dust! The one that is "Safe for Animals and Kids." It's the one that is the dust, not the sand. We use it all the time. It works well on insects and is safe around the snakes. I believe, but don't quote me on this, Kathy L recommends it. That's because its rendered inert when it gets wet.

Check it out!

Wayne
 
@ wayne the link says they are not an insect, although it does not say what they are. So I am thinking that it likely will not do anything to them.

Maybe I should google them a bit more.
 
I get those in a bathroom sink that is not used often. They crawl around but jump when i try to rinse them out.
 
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