The evolutionary ancestry of arthropods dates back to the Cambrian period. The group is generally regarded as monophyletic, and many analyses support the placement of arthropods with cycloneuralians (or their constituent clades) in a superphylum Ecdysozoa. Overall, however, the basal relationships of animals are not yet well resolved. Likewise, the relationships between various arthropod groups are still actively debated. Today, arthropods contribute to the human food supply both directly as food, and more importantly, indirectly as pollinators of crops. Some species are known to spread severe disease to humans, livestock, and crops. (Full article...)
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Alice E. Gray (June 7, 1914 – April 27, 1994) was an American entomologist and origamist. She worked as an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York for 43 years, writing, illustrating, and creating large models of insects. Known as the "Bug Lady", she conducted outreach and education in the museum, in local schools, and appeared on The Tonight Show. She began practicing origami first as an extension of her interest in insects, starting a tradition of using origami creatures to decorate the museum's Christmas tree. In the 1960s, she became more involved with the origami community and, in 1978, co-founded the Friends of the Origami Center of America in New York with Lillian Oppenheimer and Michael Shall, now known as OrigamiUSA. (Full article...)
Mole crickets are members of the insect familyGryllotalpidae, in the orderOrthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets). Mole crickets are cylindrical-bodied, fossorialinsects about 3–5 cm (1.2–2.0 in) long as adults, with small eyes and shovel-like fore limbs highly developed for burrowing. They are present in many parts of the world and where they have arrived in new regions, may become agricultural pests.
Mole crickets have three life stages: eggs, nymphs, and adults. Most of their lives in these stages are spent underground, but adults have wings and disperse in the breeding season. They vary in their diet: some species are herbivores, mainly feeding on roots; others are omnivores, including worms and grubs in their diet; and a few are largely predatory. Male mole crickets have an exceptionally loud song; they sing from a burrow that opens out into the air in the shape of an exponential horn. The song is an almost pure tone, modulated into chirps. It is used to attract females, either for mating, or for indicating favourable habitats for them to lay their eggs.
In Zambia, mole crickets are thought to bring good fortune, while in Latin America, they are said to predict rain. In Florida, where Neoscapteriscus mole crickets are not native, they are considered pests, and various biological controls have been used. Gryllotalpa species have been used as food in West Java, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines. (Full article...)
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Lycorma imperialis is a planthopperindigenous to parts of China and Indo-Malaysia. L. imperialis was originally discovered in 1846 by Adam White and has one recognized non-nominate subspecies, L. i. punicea. L. imperialis has undergone a number of reclassifications since its discovery and is one of four species in the genusLycorma. L. imperialis follows a hemimetabolous life cycle and will undergo a series of nymphal stages (instars) before maturing to an adult.
Lycorma imperialis and L. i. punicea are referred to as "lanternflies" or "lantern bugs" due to their crimson hindwings and their forewings, which can range from blue green to brick red. They do not, however, emit light. L. imperialis can cause substantial damage to agricultural industries due to its specialized, sap sucking mouthparts and the resulting mold that develops from its honeydew excrement. (Full article...)
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C. citricola from Portugal
Cyrtophora citricola, also known as the tropical tent-web spider, is an orb-weaver spider in the family Araneidae. It is found in Asia, Africa, Australia, Costa Rica, Hispaniola, Colombia, and Southern Europe and in 2000, it was discovered in Florida. C. citricola differs from many of its close relatives due its ability to live in a wide variety of environments. In North America and South America, the spider has caused extensive damage to agricultural operations.
C. citricola is in the orb web spider family, but its orb webs are considered atypical. They have a thick silk strand barrier above the orb and a thinner barrier below the orb. This gives the webs a horizontal mesh-like appearance. The spider has developed distinct and specific prey-capturing techniques using its unconventional webs. The prey flies into the upper mesh layer of the web and is deflected into the orb web. The spider then collects and stores the prey in its web. The difference in C. citricola's web silk stems from physiological variations in its spinning apparatuses, as compared to other closely related species. Its webs are non-adhesive and do not require daily respinning.
This spider is one of the few species to exhibit a variable level of sociality. C. citricola can be seen in colonies, which may have arisen due to reduced predation. Within these colonies, each spider has its own web that is linked to other spiders through communal webbing. The spider webs are often built in large matrices next to one another and can span entire trees. The spider usually peacefully coexists with other spiders in the colony. However, at times the spider may have to ward off other spiders in the colony that may try and claim its web. (Full article...)
Eusarcana is known for its odd proportions and features; the broad abdomen, thin and long tail, spined and forward-facing walking appendages and sharp and curved tail spike differentiate it from most other eurypterids, but are shared with other carcinosomatid eurypterids. The triangular carapace, oddly positioned forward-facing eyes differentiate the genus further from its closest relatives. At 80 centimetres (31.5 in) in length, E. scorpionis represents a moderately large species of eurypterid, and far exceeded other representatives of the genus in size, such as the 4 cm (1.5 in) long E. obesus.
Originally described under the name Eusarcus, this name was preoccupied by a genus of living harvestmen in the family Gonyleptidae. Following the discovery of this homonym, the genus was also wrongly recognized as synonymous with the related Carcinosoma and was only given replacement names for the older name decades after the error was discovered, first as Eusarcana in 1942 and later as Paracarcinosoma (assumed to have been named without knowledge of the earlier replacement name) in 1964. (Full article...)
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The deathwatch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum) is a species of woodboring beetle that sometimes infests the structural timbers of old buildings. The adult beetle is brown and measures on average 7 mm (0.3 in) long. Eggs are laid in dark crevices in old wood inside buildings, trees, and inside tunnels left behind by previous larvae. The larvae bore into the timber, feeding for up to ten years before pupating, and later emerging from the wood as adult beetles. Timber that has been damp and is affected by fungal decay is soft enough for the larvae to chew through. They obtain nourishment by using enzymes present in their gut to digest the cellulose and hemicellulose in the wood.
The larvae of deathwatch beetles weaken the structural timbers of a building by tunneling through them. Treatment with insecticides to kill the larvae is largely ineffective, and killing the adult beetles when they emerge in spring and early summer may be a better option. However, infestation by these beetles is often limited to historic buildings, because modern buildings tend to use softwoods for joists and rafters instead of aged oak timbers, which the beetles prefer.
To attract mates, the adult insects create a tapping or ticking sound that can sometimes be heard in the rafters of old buildings on summer nights; therefore, the deathwatch beetle is associated with quiet, sleepless nights and is named for the vigil (watch) being kept beside the dying or dead. By extension, there exists a superstition that these sounds are an omen of impending death. (Full article...)
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Illustration of PWL2013/5224-LS, the type specimen of W. noctua
Wiedopterus is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. The type and only species of Wiedopterus, W. noctua, is known from deposits of Early Devonian age in Germany. The generic name derives from the Wied river, which runs near the site of the initial discovery, and the species name, noctua, derives from Latinnoctua (owl) which refers to the superficial resemblance of the carapace (head plate) to an owl.
A small eurypterid, the type and only known specimen of Wiedopterus does not preserve the appendages or the underside of the body, making certain classification of the genus impossible. As such, it is formally classified as Eurypterinaincertae sedis (indicating uncertain placement within the Eurypterina suborder of eurypterids). Though not yet formally classified as such, Wiedopterus was suggested to probably belong to the Adelophthalmidae family on account of various features, including its general body outline, the position of its eyes, the first segment after its head being reduced in size as well as there being longitudinal ridges on the posterior segments of its body. (Full article...)
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Phengaris rebeli (formerly Maculinea rebeli), common name mountain Alcon blue, is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It was first found and described in Styria, Austria, on Mount Hochschwab around 1700. Although it was initially classified as a subspecies of P. alcon, a European researcher, Lucien A. Berger, designated it as a separate species in 1946. Genetic similarities between P. rebeli and P. alcon have led many researchers to argue that the two are the same species and differences are due to intraspecific variation.
Although P. rebeli is found across the Palearctic (see subspecies), it is difficult to determine the species' precise range due to confusion with P. alcon.
Behavioral ecologists have found its role as a brood parasite to be of particular interest as, unlike many brood parasites, it does not directly oviposit in the hosts' nests. P. rebeli parasitizes the colony ant speciesMyrmica schencki as a larva by using chemical mimicry to trick the ants into believing that they are ant larvae; thus, the ants bring P. rebelicaterpillars back to their nests and feed them. P. rebeli is dependent on the plant Gentiana cruciata early in its life cycle and is vulnerable to parasitism by Ichneumon eumerus while inside the nest of M. schencki. It was placed on the IUCN Red List in 2000 and is classified as a species vulnerable to extinction. (Full article...)
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Fossil specimen of A. mansfieldi illustrated by James Hall
Adelophthalmus is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Adelophthalmus have been discovered in deposits ranging in age from the Early Devonian to the Early Permian, which makes it the longest lived of all known eurypterid genera, with a total temporal range of over 120 million years. Adelopththalmus was the final genus of the Eurypterina suborder of eurypterids and consisted the only known genus of swimming eurypterids from the Middle Devonian until its extinction during the Permian, after which the few surviving eurypterids were all walking forms of the suborder Stylonurina.
Fossils of Adelophthalmus have been described from four continents; North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, which indicates that Adelophthalmus might have had a nearly cosmopolitan (worldwide) distribution, one of few eurypterid genera to achieve one besides potentially Pterygotus. The territorial expansion of Adelophthalmus had begun early, with representatives found in both Siberia and Australia during the Devonian, but it first gained its almost cosmopolitan distribution following the amalgamation of the supercontinent Pangaea during the Carboniferous and Permian.
The generic name Adelophthalmus means "no obvious eye", referencing that the holotype fossil seemingly represented an eyeless eurypterid, with a carapace (head plate) completely lacking any indication of eyes. Though this has caused much subsequent confusion, including the naming of several junior synonyms, the apparent eyelessness of the type specimen is treated by modern researchers as a preservational artifact, and not a feature that any species of Adelophthalmus would have possessed in life. (Full article...)
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Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite, is an external parasiticmite that attacks and feeds on honey bees and is one of the most damaging honey bee pests in the world. A significant mite infestation leads to the death of a honey bee colony, usually in the late autumn through early spring. Without management for Varroa mite, honey bee colonies typically collapse within 2 to 3 years in temperate climates. These mites can infest Apis mellifera, the western honey bee, and Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee. Due to very similar physical characteristics, this species was thought to be the closely related Varroa jacobsoni prior to 2000, but they were found to be two separate species after DNA analysis.
Parasitism of bees by mites in the genus Varroa is called varroosis. The Varroa mite can reproduce only in a honey bee colony. It attaches to the body of the bee and weakens the bee. The species is a vector for at least five debilitating bee viruses, including RNA viruses such as the deformed wing virus (DWV). The Varroa mite is the parasite with possibly the most pronounced economic impact on the beekeeping industry and is one of multiple stress factors contributing to the higher levels of bee losses around the world. Varroa mite has also been implicated as one of the multiple causes of colony collapse disorder.
Management of this pest focuses on reducing mite numbers through monitoring to avoid significant hive losses or death. 3% of bees infested in a hive is considered an economic threshold where damage is high enough to warrant additional management. Miticides, are available, though some are difficult to time correctly while avoiding harm to the hive, and resistance has occurred for others. Screened bottom boards on hives can be used for both monitoring and mite removal, and drone comb that mites prefer can be used as a trap to remove mites from the hive. Honey bee lines in breeding programs also show partial resistance to Varroa mite through increased hygienic behavior that is being incorporated as an additional management strategy. (Full article...)
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Fossil of A. cummingsi
Acutiramus is a genus of giant predatory eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Acutiramus have been discovered in deposits of Late Silurian to Early Devonian age. Eight species have been described, five from North America (including A. cummingsi, the type species) and two from the Czech Republic (with one of them potentially found in Australia as well). The generic name derives from Latinacuto ("acute" or "sharp") and Latin ramus ("branch"), referring to the acute angle of the final tooth of the claws relative to the rest of the claw.
Acutiramus is classified as part of the eurypterid family Pterygotidae, a family differentiated from other eurypterids by their flattened telsons (the most posterior segment of the body) and their modified chelicerae (frontal appendages), ending in well-developed chelae (claws). Many pterygotid eurypterids, such as Jaekelopterus and Pterygotus, grew to gigantic proportions. Acutiramus was no exception, with the largest species, A. bohemicus, surpassing 2 metres (6.6 feet) in length. All species were not this large though, with some (such as A. floweri) only reaching lengths of 20 centimetres (7.9 in).
Other giant pterygotid eurypterids, such as Jaekelopterus and Pterygotus, were very visually acute (possessed good and sharp eyesight) in a similar way to modern predatory arthropods and possessed robust and crushing chelae. Studies on the compound eyes and chelicerae of Acutiramus has revealed that it would have had a comparably low visual acuity and claws adapted for slicing and shearing, rather than crushing. This suggests that the ecological role of Acutiramus was distinct from that of other pterygotids, it potentially lived a lifestyle of ambush predation or scavenging on soft-bodied animals, feeding during the night or in otherwise low-light conditions. (Full article...)
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Fossil carapace and portions of the abdomen of R. vaningeni
Rhinocarcinosoma is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Rhinocarcinosoma have been discovered in deposits ranging of Late Silurian age in the United States, Canada and Vietnam. The genus contains three species, the American R. cicerops and R. vaningeni and the Vietnamese R. dosonensis. The generic name is derived from the related genus Carcinosoma, and the Greek ῥινός (rhinós, "nose"), referring to the unusual shovel-shaped protrusion on the front of the carapace (head plate) of Rhinocarcinosoma, its most distinctive feature.
Other than the protrusion, Rhinocarcinosoma was anatomically very similar to its close relative, Eusarcana, though it lacked the scorpion-like telson (the posteriormost division of the body) of that genus. Further distinguishing features include more slender appendages and slightly different ornamentation of scales. In terms of size, Rhinocarcinosoma was a medium-sized carcinosomatid eurypterid, with the largest species, R. vaningeni, reaching lengths of 39 centimetres (15.4 in). In contrast to other carcinosomatids, Rhinocarcinosoma is not known only from marine settings, but also from deposits that were once lakes or rivers. It was adapted to a bottom-dwelling lifestyle, as either a burrowing or digging scavenger or top predator, feeding on other invertebrates and small fish. (Full article...)
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Abantiades latipennis, known as the Pindi moth, is a species of moth in the family Hepialidae. It may also be referred to as a swift moth or a ghost moth, as this is a common name associated with Hepialidae. Endemic to Australia and identified in 1932, it is most populous in temperate rainforest where eucalypti are prevalent, as the larvae feed primarily on the roots of these trees. Females lay eggs during flight in a scattering fashion. The larvae live for over eighteen months underground, while adult moths survive for approximately one week, as they have no mouthparts with which to feed. The moths are preyed upon by a number of predators, including bats and owls. Brown in colour overall, males are paler and the identifying silver bars of the male's wings are more prominent than those of the female's, with dark margins. Male adults are generally smaller.
Established clearfelling practices have been shown to favour the Pindi moth, and could lead to it being considered a pest due to opportunistic proliferation of the species. The resulting damage caused to the trees on which it feeds may be considered significant. (Full article...)
Among parasitoids, strategies range from living inside the host (endoparasitism), allowing it to continue growing before emerging as an adult, to paralysing the host and living outside it (ectoparasitism). Hosts can include other parasitoids, resulting in hyperparasitism; in the case of oak galls, up to five levels of parasitism are possible. Some parasitoids influence their host's behaviour in ways that favour the propagation of the parasitoid.
Eusociality (Greek εὖ eu "good" and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society which are sometimes referred to as 'castes'. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms.
Eusociality has evolved among the insects, crustaceans, and mammals. It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Blattodea (termites). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductivemales take the roles of the sole reproducers, while soldiers and workers work together to create and maintain a living situation favorable for the brood. Queens produce multiple queen pheromones to create and maintain the eusocial state in their colonies; they may also eat eggs laid by other females or exert dominance by fighting. There are two eusocial rodents: the naked mole-rat and the Damaraland mole-rat. Some shrimps, such as Synalpheus regalis, are eusocial. E. O. Wilson and others have made the claim that humans have evolved a weak form of eusociality. It has been suggested that the colonial and epiphytic staghorn fern, too, may make use of a primitively eusocial division of labor. (Full article...)
... that the Australian jumping spider Portia fimbriata plays a deadly game of hide-and-seek with its favourite prey, Jacksonoides queenlandicus, another jumping spider?
Image 3In honeypot antrepletes, the abdomens of the workers that hold the sugar solution grow vastly, but only the unsclerotised cuticle can stretch, leaving the unstretched sclerites as dark islands on the clear abdomen (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 15Some of the various hypotheses of myriapod phylogeny. Morphological studies (trees a and b) support a sister grouping of Diplopoda and Pauropoda, while studies of DNA or amino acid similarities suggest a variety of different relationships, including the relationship of Pauropoda and Symphyla in tree c. (from Myriapoda)
Image 16Mature queen of a termite colony, showing how the unsclerotised cuticle stretches between the dark sclerites that failed to stretch as the abdomen grew to accommodate her ovaries (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 17Decapods, from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 work Kunstformen der Natur (from Crustacean)
Image 21 This fully-grown robber crab has tough fabric forming its joints, delicate biomineralized cuticle over its sensory antennae, optic-quality over its eyes, and strong, calcite-reinforced chitin armouring its body and legs; its pincers can break into coconuts (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 26Body structure of a typical crustacean – krill (from Crustacean)
Image 27The house centipedeScutigera coleoptrata has rigid sclerites on each body segment. Supple chitin holds the sclerites together and connects the segments flexibly. Similar chitin connects the joints in the legs. Sclerotised tubular leg segments house the leg muscles, their nerves and attachments, leaving room for the passage of blood to and from the hemocoel (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 28Ghost crab, showing a variety of integument types in its exoskeleton, with transparent biomineralization over the eyes, strong biomineralization over the pincers, and tough chitin fabric in the joints and the bristles on the legs (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 29This Zoea-stage larva is hardly recognisable as a crab, but each time it sheds its cuticle it remodels itself, eventually taking on its final crab form (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 31Formation of anterior segments across arthropod taxa based on gene expression and neuroanatomical observations, Note the chelicera(Ch) and chelifore(Chf) arose from somite 1 and thus correspond to the first antenna(An/An1) of other arthropods. (from Chelicerata)
Gonepteryx rhamni, also known as the common brimstone, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It lives throughout the Palearctic zone and is commonly found across Europe, Asia and North Africa. The butterfly relies on two species of buckthorn as hosts for its eggs and larvae, which influences its geographic range and distribution as these plants are commonly found in wetlands. After spending the summer feeding, adults travel to woodland areas to spend seven months hibernating. In spring when their host plants have developed, they return to the wetlands to breed and lay eggs. Both the larval and adult forms of the species have protective coloration and behaviour that decreases their chances of being recognised and preyed upon. The adult common brimstone has sexual dichromism in its wing coloration and iridescence; the male (pictured) has yellow wings and iridescence, while females have greenish-white wings and are not iridescent.
Danaus genutia, the common tiger or striped tiger, is a species of brush-footed butterfly found in Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, south-eastern Asia and Australia. It prefers areas of moderate to heavy rainfall, and typical habitats include scrubby jungle, deciduous forests and fallow land near habitations. The insect sequesters toxins from plants, and advertises its unpalatability by having prominent markings and striking colour patterns. This adult male common tiger, of the subspecies D. g. genutia, was photographed in Kerala, India.
Planthoppers are insects in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. This photograph shows three adult Phromnia rosea planthoppers on a stem, with three nymphs underneath; the adults fold their wings in a tent-like fashion, while the nymphs are clad in a dense tangle of white wax threads. Both the adults and the nymphs feed by sucking sap from the host plant.
The rose chafer (Cetonia aurata) is a reasonably large beetle (20 mm/¾ in long) that has metallic green coloration with a distinct V shaped scutellum, the small triangular area between the wing cases just below the thorax. Rose chafers are found over southern and central Europe and the southern part of the UK.
The Forest scorpion (Cercophonius squama) is a scorpion native to southeastern Australia and Tasmania. The body is 25 to 40 millimetres (0.98 to 1.57 in) long, and coloured creamy yellow to orange brown with dark brown variegations. The legs are yellow with some dark brown pigment.
The orb-weaver spiders (family Araneidae) are the familiar builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields and forests. The family is a large one, including over 2800 species in over 160 genera worldwide, making it the third largest known (behind Salticidae and Linyphiidae). The web has always been thought of as an engineering marvel.
The oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis) is a social insect in the family Vespidae, found in southern Europe, northeastern Africa, and western Asia. This worker, photographed in Sha'ar Poleg Reserve in Israel, is gathering nectar from a sea squill; adults will also feed on honeydew and fruit. They also capture insects such as grasshoppers, flies and honey bees to provide a diet high in protein for the colony's brood.
Xylotrupes socrates (Siamese rhinoceros beetle, or "fighting beetle"), male, on a banana leaf. This scarab beetle is particularly known for its role in insect fighting in Northern Laos and Thailand.
A fishing spider with two of its legs missing. Most likely some predator (a bird, or given its habitat a large fish or frog) grasped the spider by the missing limbs which were jettisoned by the spider in response, a process known as autotomy.
The Meadow Argus (Junonia villida) is a species of butterfly native to Australasia. Its brown wings are each covered with two distinctive black and blue eyespots as well as white and orange marks that appear on the edge of the wings. Males and females are similar in appearance and size, with females being slightly larger.
Leptosia nina, known as the psyche, is a species of butterfly in the family Pieridae (the sulphurs, yellows and whites), found in the Indian subcontinent, southeastern Asia, and Australia. It has a small wingspan of 2.5 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in). The upper side of the otherwise white forewing has a large, somewhat pear-shaped, black spot; this spot is also present on the underside which is scattered with greenish dots and speckles, sometimes arranged in bands. This L. nina butterfly was photographed in Kerala, India.
The Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae, found in Europe and parts of West Asia. This photograph, taken in a chalk meadow at Yoesden Bank in Buckinghamshire, England, shows the underside of the folded wings of a male Adonis blue; the upper side is a bright, sky-blue.
Attacus taprobanis is a species of moth in the family Saturniidae native to southern India and Sri Lanka. This adult male, photographed in Kadavoor, Kerala, developed from a larva feeding on a mahogany tree. When ready to pupate, the larva formed a papery cocoon 7.5 cm (3 in) long interwoven with a leaf; before doing this, the larva had attached the leaf to the stem with a silken thread and cut the leaf stalk. The colours of the dying leaf provided camouflage for the pupa, and the adult insect emerged some 24 days later.
Two Melangyna viridiceps (called Common Hoverflies in Australia) mating in mid-air. The male, which can be identified by the eyes meeting at the top of its head, is on top. The term "hoverfly" refers to about 6,000 species of flying insects in the family Syrphidae. They are often seen hovering at flowers and are important pollinators.
The light blue soldier crab (Mictyris longicarpus) inhabits beaches in the Indo-Pacific region. Soldier crabs filter sand or mud for microorganisms. They congregate during the low tide, and bury themselves in a corkscrew pattern during high tide, or whenever they are threatened.
Zonocerus variegatus, the variegated grasshopper, is a species of grasshopper in the family Pyrgomorphidae native to tropical western and central Africa. It feeds on a wide variety of plant foods and causes damage to crops, particularly cassava, groundnuts and vegetables, as well as transmitting diseases caused by mosaic viruses between plants. This Z. variegatus grasshopper was photographed in the Bobiri Forest in Ghana.
The Ozyptila praticola species of crab spider is found throughout Europe and the Middle East. They do not build webs to trap prey, but are active hunters. Crab spiders are so named because of their first two pairs of legs, which are held out to the side giving them a crab-like appearance. Also, like crabs, these spiders move sideways and backwards more easily than forwards.
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