Insects Morphology

Mealworms

Saturday, 17 November 2012

Mealworms are the larval form of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor, a species of darkling beetle. Like all holometabolic insects, they go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Larvae typically measure about 2.5 cm or more, whereas adults are generally between 1.25 and 1.8 cm in length. Mealworms are typically used as a food source for reptile, fish, and avian pets. They are also provided to wild birds in bird feeders, particularly during the nesting season, when birds are raising their young and appreciate a ready food supply. Mealworms are high in protein, which makes them especially useful as a food source. They are also commonly used for fishing bait.

Mealworms

Yellow Jacket

Yellow jacket is the common name in North America for predatory wasps of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula. Members of these genera are known simply as "wasps" in other English-speaking countries. Most of these are black and yellow; some are black and white (such as the bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata), while others may have the abdomen background color red instead of black. They can be identified by their distinctive markings, small size (similar to a honey bee), their occurrence only in colonies, and a characteristic, rapid, side to side flight pattern prior to landing. All females are capable of stinging. Despite having drawn the loathing of humans, yellow jackets are in fact important predators of pest insects.

Yellow Jacket

Xylophagous Insect

Xylophagy is a term used in ecology to describe the habits of an herbivorous animal whose diet consists primarily (often solely) of wood. The word derives from Greek ξυλοφάγος (xulophagos) "eating wood", from ξύλον (xulon) "wood" and φαγεῖν (phagein) "to eat", an ancient Greek name for a kind of a worm-eating bird. Animals feeding only on dead wood are called sapro-xylophagous. Most such animals are arthropods, primarily insects of various kinds, in which the behavior is quite common, and found in many different orders.

Xylophagous Insect

Xerces Blue Butterfly

The Xerces Blue (Glaucopsyche xerces) is an extinct species of butterfly in the gossamer-winged butterfly family, Lycaenidae. The species lived in coastal sand dunes of the Sunset District of San Francisco. The Xerces Blue is believed to be the first American butterfly species to become extinct as a result of loss of habitat caused by urban development. The last Xerces Blue was seen in either 1941 or 1943 on land that is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Xerces Blue is one of the few butterflies species that start with the letter X.

Xerces Blue Butterfly

Webspinner

The order Embioptera, commonly known as webspinners, are a small group of mostly tropical and subtropical insects, classified under the subclass Pterygota. The order has also been referred to as Embiodea or Embiidina. The name Embioptera ("lively wings") comes from Greek, embios meaning "lively" and pteron meaning "wing", a name that has not been considered to be particularly descriptive for this group of fliers, perhaps instead referring to their remarkable speed of movement both forward and backward. The group probably first appeared during the Jurassic and is well represented in Cretaceous amber. The common name webspinner comes from the insects' unique ability to spin silk from structures on their front legs. They use the silk to make a web-like pouch or gallery in which they live.

Webspinner

Water Bug

Nepomorpha is an infraorder of insects in the "true bug" order (Hemiptera). They belong to the "typical" bugs of the suborder Heteroptera. Due to their aquatic habits, these animals are known as true water bugs. They occur all over the world outside the polar regions, with about 2,000 species altogether. The Nepomorpha can be distinguisted from related Heteroptera by their missing or vestigial ocelli. Also, as referred to by the obsolete name Cryptocerata ("the hidden-horned ones"), their antennae are reduced, with weak muscles, and usually carried tucked against the head.

Water Bug

Wasp

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their numbers, or natural biocontrol. Parasitic wasps are increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they prey mostly on pest insects and have little impact on crops.

Wasp

Velvet Ant

The Mutillidae are a family of more than 3,000 species of wasps (despite the names) whose wingless females resemble large, hairy ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair which most often is bright scarlet or orange, but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colours serve as aposematic signals. They are known for their extremely painful stings, hence the common name cow killer or cow ant. Unlike a real ant, they do not have drones, workers, and queens. However, velvet ants do exhibit haplodiploid sex determination similar to other members of Vespoidea.

Velvet Ant

Squash Vine Borer

The squash vine borer (Melittia cucurbitae) is a diurnal species of sesiid moth. It is a pest that attacks wild and cultivated varieties of squash. The moth is often mistaken for a bee or wasp because of its movements, and the bright orange hindleg scales. The females typically lay their eggs at the base of leaf stalks, and the caterpillars develop and feed inside the stalk, eventually killing the leaf. They soon migrate to the main stem, and with enough feeding damage to the stem, the entire plant may die. The squash vine borer lives in most temperate North American states, except the Pacific coast. Southern states have two broods a year of the borer.

Squash Vine Borer

Viceroy Butterfly

Friday, 9 November 2012

The Viceroy (Limenitis archippus) is a North American butterfly with a range from the Northwest Territories along the eastern edges of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains, southwards into central Mexico. Its wings feature an orange and black pattern, and over most of its range it is a Müllerian mimic with the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). The viceroy's wingspan is between 53 and 81 mm. It can be distinguished from the Monarch by its smaller size and the postmedian black line that runs across the veins on the hindwing.

Viceroy Butterfly

Uncas Skipper

The Uncas Skipper or White-vein Skipper (Hesperia uncas) is a butterfly of the Hesperiidae family. It is found from US midwest to southern portions of the three Canadian Prairie provinces, north as far as Edmonton, Alberta.The wingspan is 32–42 mm. There are two generations per year with adults on wing from May to June and again from August to September, in Canada from mid-June to late July.The larvae feed on Deschampsia elongata, Stipa, Bromus rubens, and Poa pratensis. Adults feed on flower nectar from various flowers, including rabbitbrush, needlegrass (Stipa nevadensis), and blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis).

Uncas Skipper

Underwing

The Large Yellow Underwing (Noctua pronuba) is a moth, the type species for the family Noctuidae. It is an abundant species throughout Europe, one of the most common and most familiar moths of the region. In some years the species is highly migratory with large numbers appearing suddenly in marginal parts of the range. It is also present from North Africa eastward to India. It was introduced into North America at Nova Scotia.

Underwing

Tsetse Fly

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

Tsetse, sometimes spelled tzetze and also known as tik-tik flies, are large biting flies that inhabit much of mid-continental Africa between the Sahara and the Kalahari deserts. They live by feeding on the blood of vertebrate animals and are the primary biological vectors of Wuchereria bancrofti, which cause Elephantiasis, and trypanosomes, which cause human sleeping sickness and animal trypanosomiasis, also known as nagana. Tsetse include all the species in the genus Glossina, which are generally placed in their own family, Glossinidae.

Tsetse Fly

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Insects Morphology

Mealworms

Saturday, 17 November 2012

Yellow Jacket

Xylophagous Insect

Xerces Blue Butterfly

Webspinner

Water Bug

Wasp

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Velvet Ant

Squash Vine Borer

Viceroy Butterfly

Friday, 9 November 2012

Uncas Skipper

Underwing

Tsetse Fly

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

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Saturday, 17 November 2012

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Tuesday, 13 November 2012

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Friday, 9 November 2012

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Tuesday, 6 November 2012

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