Food contaminated with fipronil seemed to have an impact on springtail mortality (ANOVA, P = 0.0034). Mortality increased by 30% when food was highly contaminated (5000 μg g−1) (Table 1). However, springtails consumed the totality of the food in the control and in the 10 μg g−1 food treatment. More contaminated foods were not consumed. No toxicity effect was observed when springtails absorbed food with 10 μg fipronil g−1. Therefore, it could be considered that the mortality rate observed with increasing contamination was linked with an absence of nutrition rather than fipronil toxicity. Batches containing no food were tested to corroborate this hypothesis but no statistical differences were observed between control and No-food tests.