insects
''Naturam ducem sequentes numquam aberrarimus''
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Autocartes aeneus (Family: Trictenotomidae)
Even some specialist coleopterists, when they hear the name “trictenotomids”, don’t quite know what to say: “Who?+ Is that a fact?!” Some might take them for a variety of longhorn beetle, or stag beetle. There are only a few people around with a “personal” knowledge of these interesting representatives of the order of Coleoptera.
The family of trictenotomids is a classic example of a small family with a distinct and restricted area of distribution. There are currently just 14 recent representatives of this family known to science. As yet, no fossil species of trictenotomids have been discovered. All the contemporary species have been encountered in the Oriental zoogeographical region, and only a few of them have distribution areas that extend into the South-Eastern Palaearctic.
Read more: http://www.zin.ru/Animalia/Coleoptera/eng/incotc.htm(photo by Mashku on Flickr)
Southwestern Ironclad Beetle (Zopherus nodulosus haldemani)
(by HowardCheekPhotography.com on Flickr)
insects beetles ironclad texas zopherus nodulosus macro national wildlife federation canon cheek howard photography lantana flowers yellow gold lines nature Macro-Life PhotoContest-TNC11 DailyNature-TNC11
Arolium, Empodium, Pulvilli
The tarsus of insects usually consists of several small joints, the last of which generally carries a pair of terminal claws. The last tarsal segment may be extended between the claws to form a pad-like organ - the arolium. Some Diptera (true flies) have two additional pads - the pulvilli (singular: pulvillus) - lying below the claws on either side of the arolium , although in most flies, including the common housefly and its relatives, the arolium is replaced by a stout central bristle - the empodium. In many insects, the other tarsal segments also have ventral pulvillus-like organs, called plantulae. These various structures - the arolium, pulvilli and plantulae - produce a sticky secretion and act like ‘suction-pads’, enabling the insect to climb smooth or steep surfaces. This is the secret of the fly’s ability to walk up-side-down on the ceiling!
Fact Source: http://www.kendalluk.com/morph.htm
Figure: Encyclopedia of Entomology, John L. Capinera , 2008
SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) Photo 1: Foot of a Weaver Ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) worker. Pretarsal claws and manubrium in red; arolium in yellow; tarsi in green (Scanning Electron Micrograph, Roberto Keller/AMNH)
SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) Photo 2: . The hairy adhesive pads, or pulvilli (beneath the claws), allow the Stable fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) to cling to smooth surfaces.
SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) Photo 3: The Figeater Beetle’s (Cotinis mutabilis) leg is comprised of a variable number of segments, incliuding the pretarsus, seen here with a claw and spiked empodium.
arolium claw empodium entomology insects legs morphology pulvilli tarsi SEM Stomoxys calcitrans Cotinis mutabilis Oecophylla smaragdina Scanning Electron Micrograph
Pseudopupil
In the compound eye of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans, the pseudopupil appears as a dark spot which moves across the eye as the animal is rotated. This occurs because the ommatidia which one observes “head-on” (along their optical axes) absorb the incident light, while those to one side reflect it. The pseudopupil therefore reveals which ommatidia are aligned with the axis along which the observer is viewing.
(Close up image of a Large Brown Mantis’ face (Archimantis latistyla) showing the black pseudopupil in its compound eye.)
Source: Wikipedia
The Dermaptera are one of those taxa which many people consider flightless, because they never saw one on the wing. And indeed about 40 % of the species have reduced wings; the remaining 60 % have wings but not all of them do actually fly (WAGNER & LIEBHERR, 1992).
The forewings of earwigs are short oblong leathery plates used to cover the hindwings like the elytra of a beetle, rather than to fly. Most species have short and leather-like forewings with very thin hindwings.The hindwing is a very thin membrane that expands like a fan, radiating from one point folded under the forewing.Even though most earwigs have wings and are capable of flight, they are rarely seen in flight. These wings are unique in venation and in the pattern of folding that requires the use of the cerci.
Unfolding is done by a unique mechanism: both hind wings, one after the other, are unfolded by the cerci. The abdomen bends over cranially, interferes with the cerci in the erected wing package and ‘wipes’ them out (i.e. unfolds the hind wings).
(photo by smccann on Flickr)
Tischeria ekebladella caterpillar (by Bessest on Flickr)
*The larva generally feeds on the leaves of oak (Quercus) or sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), forming distinctive white mines on the upperside.
Fulvous Pied Flat (Pseudocoladenia dan) (by bug eye :) Thailand on Flickr)
We’ve all seen macrophotography of insects before, but never quite like this. These are photos of bugs after they’ve been peeled off the windshield of a car.
Photographer Voker Steger describes his method:
“The speed is important. The right speed is about 70km/h (43 mph). Flies that get hit by a car at that speed look like fallen angels in the electron microscope.”
Red Tailed Bumble Bee (Bombus lapidarius) harvesting nectar from the Garden Lupin (Lupinus polyphyllus), Hawick, Scottish Borders, Scotland.
(photo by the water watcher 05. on Flickr)
bee blue lupin bombus lapidarius bumble bee flower insect insects lupin nature red tailed bumble bee scotland wildlife Lupinus polyphyllus
Night Sounds of the Jurassic: A Prehistoric Katydid Given Voice
by Sid Perkins
Jurassic katydids sang in a deeper register than their modern-day kin, a new study suggests. Katydids, crickets, and a number of other creatures make their musical chirps by scraping one rough body part against another—a process known as stridulation. Previously, scientists hadn’t discovered fossils that preserved the music-making structures, so they couldn’t determine whether the ancient insects chirped at a single frequency, as some living species do, or across a variety of frequencies.
Now, an analysis of katydid wing fragments (second and fourth images from left) from 165-million-year-old rocks in northern China that include well-preserved versions of the music-making structures (depicted at left and third from left) reveals that the ancient katydids sang at a single frequency of about 6.4 kilohertz, or about 6400 cycles per second. That tone is about half the frequency created by today’s katydids but within the range of tones generated by living species of crickets, the researchers report online today in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(photo: Jun-Jie Gu et al., PNAS Early Edition)
The single-frequency chirps, each of which lasted about 16 milliseconds (as heard in the video), would have helped the katydids distinguish the calls of their species amid the cacophony of a forest filled with other insects. Because all modern-day katydids that use single-tone chirps are active at night, the team suggests that the newly described Jurassic species also was nocturnal—a lifestyle that would have diminished predation by small dinosaurs that foraged in the daytime.
(via: Science NOW)
Thysanoplusia orichalcea (by ruiamandrade on Flickr)
Thysanoplusia orichalcea, known as the Slender Burnished Brass or Soybean looper (though technically it is not a member of the Looper moth family), is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found from Southern Europe and Africa to Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. (Wikipedia)
Thysanoplusia orichalcea Thysanoplusia orichalcea noctuidae lepidoptera moth borboleta insectos insects nature natureza
Um predador em miniatura(a miniature predator) (by ruiamandrade on Flickr)
*Syrphid larva eating aphid
more delicious (by ~KEYZETman)
