Insects {insect}| (Insecta) have six legs, have up to eleven abdomen segments, have no legs on abdomen, have tracheae, and have simple or compound eyes. Insects can have a small connection between first and second abdomen segments. Insects can have diapause. Insects can form social colonies.
types
Main orders are bees and wasps and ants (Hymenoptera), butterflies (Lepidoptera), and beetles (Coleoptera). Insects are the largest class, with 25 orders, and include cricket, katydid, grasshopper, walking stick or mantis, flea, firefly, ladybug, ant, honeybee, wasp, yellow jacket, hornet, bee, beetle, moth, butterfly, and termite.
Hymenoptera females have one tube {ovipositor}, which can also sting, to insert eggs into hosts.
Crab, bee, and fly have 1000 photoreceptors {ommatidia}, connected to inhibitory retina.
Bees, ants, and termites have associated individuals {colony, arthropod}|, with one female queen.
ants
Bees and ants have male drones. Ants can take slaves. Sterile female worker ants feed soldiers, king or drones, and queen.
bees
Queen bee lays fertilized eggs to make workers, soldiers, and new queen. Workers receive no special food. Soldiers receive royal jelly and then nectar and pollen. New queen receives only royal jelly. Queen lays unfertilized eggs to make king or drones. Queen and king or drones have wings, to fly away to start new colonies. Oldest worker bees get water, pollen, and nectar. Middle-age bees secrete wax, clean up, store food, and guard hive. Young worker bees feed larvae and prepare hexagonal cells for eggs. Bees can recognize colors, except reds. Bees do circling and wagging dances, which show food source angle, direction, distance, and amount.
termites
Termites have one male king. Termites that build mud mounds follow rules about when to add and when to remove mud.
Moths, bees, butterflies, and flies can have large changes between developmental stages {metamorphosis}|. In first metamorphosis stage, egg develops. Then larva hatches from egg, crawls, eats, and looks worm-like. Larva is caterpillar for moths and butterflies, maggot for flies, and grub for bees. Larva molts several times, then makes pupa. Adult breaks pupa cocoon, pumps blood into folded parts, and secretes chitin to harden exoskeleton.
Chilling causes secretion of hormone {prothoracicotropic hormone} that induces prothoracic glands to secrete ecdysone.
Chilling secretes prothoracicotropic hormone, which induces glands {prothoracic gland} to secrete ecdysone.
Prothoracic gland secretes growth and differentiation hormone {ecdysone}, which produces molting fluid.
Metamorphosis hormones {juvenile hormone} can prevent pupa formation and allow molting.
Bee larva {grub}| molts several times.
Fly larva {maggot}| molts several times.
Moth and butterfly larva {caterpillar}| {larva} molts several times.
Last moth and butterfly larval stage is cocoon {pupa}| {chrysalis}, which has molting.
Collapsed folded adults {disc} can develop from special larva egg cells.
Insects can have dormant periods {diapause}| as adults.
Lepidoptera undergo metamorphosis through egg, larva, pupa, and adult {imago}.
Grasshoppers and other insects can have larval stages {molt}|, in which epidermal glands make enzyme that breaks down inside cuticle. Then folded inner cuticle grows. Then water or air intake breaks hard outer cuticle. Then new cuticle hardens, using calcium carbonate.
Cell groups {x organ} and sinus gland have hormone that prevents molting.
x organ has axon-tip bundles {sinus gland} that have hormone that prevents molting.
Flying {flying insect}| can be hovering, flapping, or flipping.
wing
In wing stroke, leading-edge vortex above wing increases lift, because vortex does not detach {delayed stall}. At stroke end, wing rotates to give lift {rotational lift}, like backspin on rising fastballs. At upstroke, wing goes through downstroke wake at orientation that provides lift {wake capture}. Fly hind wings act like gyroscopes to sense body orientation. Flies beat wings at 200 beats per second, under muscle-tension control.
metabolism
Flying is four times more efficient than ground locomotion but uses ten times more energy. Flying muscles have highest metabolic rates. Air has higher viscosity-to-density ratio and so is more viscous than water kinetically.
Flying can involve flapping {flapping} wings up and down.
Flying can involve moving wings in figure eights, with body horizontal {flipping}.
Flying {hovering}| can use horizontal-wing movements and twists with body vertical.
Insects {arachnid}| (Arachnida) can respire by tracheae or book lungs, have simple eyes, have poison claws on head, have eight legs, have no antenna, be carnivores, and be chelicerates. Spider, scorpion, tick, and mite are arachnids.
Arachnids respire by tracheae or by membranes that look like books {book lung}.
Large black spiders {black widow spider} have neurotoxic poison.
Mites {chigger} can be skin infesting.
Arachnids {daddy longlegs} can have long legs and small bodies.
European water mites {diving spider} (Argyoneta aquatica) can make underwater webs.
Spiders {jumping spider} can have 2000 retina receptors but no ganglion cells. Main eye has fovea with 30 cells 10 arc-minutes apart. Main eyes scan objects from one side to another for 1 to 2 seconds. If no recognition, scan repeats. Main eye can rotate 25 degrees for 5 to 15 seconds to learn line orientation. Objects detected are other jumping spiders, small and moving prey, big and coming close predator, or objects to investigate further. Other eyes detect movement and initiate saccades, based on angle between stimulus and body axis. Other eyes take 100 milliseconds to check if saccade succeeds.
Arachnids {mite, arthropod} (Acarina) can be small.
Arachnids {scorpion} can have high curving tails with poisonous sting.
Arachnids {spider, insect} can have eight legs and two body parts and make webs.
Large fuzzy spiders {tarantula} can bite.
Arachnids {tick} can be blood-sucking.
Black widow spider, Australian red-back widow spider, and brown widow spider {widow spider} (Latrodectus) have neurotoxic poisons.
Insects {centipede} (Chilopoda) can have segment leg pairs, be fast carnivores, live on land, have poison claws behind head, respire by trachea, and have flattened bodies.
Centipedes and millipedes can have simple eyes {ocellus}.
Centipedes respire by air tubes {trachea, centipede}.
Caterpillars {inchworm} {measuring worm} can raise middle then stretch out to move.
Small free-swimming fresh-water copepods {water flea} (Cladocera) {daphnid} can have large median eyes, pear-shaped bodies, and long antennae.
Insects {copepod} can have single-channel scanning eyes, like scanning beams in television cameras or electron beams in TV tubes. Copepods are in plankton.
Insects (Coleoptera) {beetle}| can have two wing pairs, two wing covers, and two thin wings. Horny front wings cover back wings, at rest. Mouth is for biting. Stenocara condenses fog on its back and tilts head down to receive water.
Beetles {boll weevil} can live and hatch in cotton balls.
Insects {click beetle} (Elateridae) can click when springing from back to feet.
Shiny green beetles {Japanese beetle} can eat plants.
Beetles {june beetle} can be large, be brown, live in North America, and eat leaves. Larvae feed on grass roots.
Small red beetles {ladybug} can have black spots.
Tenebrio molitor {darkling beetle} {mealworm} {meal worm} larvae are slender, have hard bodies, and eat grains and cereals.
large black beetle {scarab beetle}.
Beetles {stinkbug} can have bad smell.
Smooth oval-body beetles {water beetle} (Dytiscidae) have flattened hind legs for swimming.
Beetles {weevil} (Curculionidae) can eat plants. Snouts curve down.
Insects {ear wig} (Dermaptera) can have rear pincers.
Roaches {roach} (Dictyoptera) include cockroach.
Roaches {cockroach} can have organs {cerci} sensitive to vibration.
louse {cootie} (Blattodea) (Blattaria).
Insects {millipede} (Diplopoda) can have many fused double segments with short legs, be slow, live on land, have cylindrical bodies, be herbivores, and have ocellus.
Insects {fly} (Diptera) can have vision detectors for looming, moving patches, angles, and velocities. In scorpions and flies, membrane lens forms over visual pit to focus light.
Mosquitos {anopheles mosquito} (Culicidae) can transmit malaria.
Flies {blue bottle fly} can be shiny and blue.
Flies {dragon fly} can be large, with four large wings.
Nocturnal flies {firefly} can make light.
Flies {fruitfly} (Drosophila) can have red eyes. Attention affects neurons [Heisenberg and Wolf, 1984] [Tang and Guo, 2001] [van Swinderen and Greenspan, 2003]. Fruitflies can learn by trace or delay conditioning [Tully and Quinn, 1985]. Fruitflies have halteres balancing wings. Larvae eat fruit.
Fireflies have larvae {glowworm}.
Large flies {horsefly} have females that suck blood.
Black flies {housefly} can be small.
firefly {lightning bug}.
Female flies {mosquito} can suck blood.
African flies {tsetse fly} can suck blood and transmit sleeping sickness.
Insects {aphid} (Hemiptera) can be plant-sap suckers.
wingless bloodsucker {bedbug} (Cimicidae).
small winged insect {gnat}.
gnat-like Chironomidae fly or Ceratopogonidae dipteran {midge}.
Insects {scale insect} can make wax scales on plants.
Water boatman and backswimmers {water bug} are large and have piercing and sucking mouth parts.
Fresh-water water bugs {water strider} (Gerridae) (Veliidae) can have long thin legs.
Large insects {cicada} (Homoptera) can make high sounds.
Nymphs {spittlebug} (Cercopidae) can be in bubbly white clumps on plants.
Ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies {Hymenoptera} have two wing pairs, front larger than back. They undergo complete metamorphosis. Females have one ovipositor, which can also sting.
Ants (Formicidae), bees (Apoidea), and wasps (Vespidae) form a suborder {Apocrita}, whose animals have wasp waists.
Female wasps {wasp} can remember their hole states and positions, for two or three days.
large wasp {hornet}.
Midwest and west USA wasp {mud dauber wasp} builds mud nests.
Small wasps {yellow jacket} can be yellow and black.
Insects {ant, insect} (Formicidae) can be wingless and live in colonies. Saharan desert ant (Cataglyphis fortis) tells direction by light polarization and tells distance by counting number of steps and adjusting for weight. Ants take dead ants out of the nest {necrophoresis}. Dolichodial and iridomyrmecin decrease after death. Other ants can detect ant dolichodial and iridomyrmecin and so do not take ants out of the nest.
Small red ants {Amazon ant} can take slaves.
Ants {army ant} can travel together and attack insects.
Red ants {red ant} can be medium size.
Sterile females {soldier ant} can have heavy jaws and armor.
sterile females {worker ant}.
Insects {bee} can beat wings at 200 beats per second, under muscle-tension control. Bees can calculate orientation over ground by angle Sun makes with horizon at highest point {azimuth system}, which varies over year.
Bees and ants have males {drone, arthropod}|.
Bombus bees {bumblebee} loudly vibrate wings and thorax to shake pollen from flower anthers {buzz pollination}. They push pollen along body into leg pollen holders.
Bees {honeybee} can make honey in colonies in hives. Honeybees do not vibrate wings or body. Colonies are dying at higher percentage now {colony collapse disorder}.
Social insects {termite} (Isoptera) can eat wood.
Insects {Lepidoptera} can have two wing pairs covered with scales. Mouth is for sucking. They undergo metamorphosis through egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult. Lepidoptera include butterflies, moths, and skippers.
Lepidoptera {moth, insect} can hold wings flat while resting and fly at night. Moths have feathery feelers, live on land, have two antennae, and have two wing pairs raised by vertical muscle contraction pulling tergum down and lowered by longitudinal muscle contraction at 8 to 75 beats per second, under nerve control.
Large light-green American moths {luna moth} can have hind wings with tails and forewings with yellow crescents.
Moths {noctuid moth} can be pale and medium-size.
Noctuid-moth larvae {army worm} swarm and eat grass and grain.
Lepidoptera {butterfly} can hold wings straight up while resting and fly only by day. Butterflies have smooth feelers with end knobs, live on land, and have two antennae. Bicyclus-anyana adults have color if born in rainy season but are gray if born in dry season.
thorax upper-surface plate {tergum}.
Tropical butterflies {swallowtail} (Papilionidae) can have three leg pairs and tailed wings.
Insects {mantis} (Mantodea) can have big forelimbs, like grasshoppers.
Insects {cricket} (Orthoptera) can leap and make high sounds.
Insects {grasshopper} can leap, have long hind legs, and chirp.
Green insects can make shrill sounds {katydid}.
cicada or swarming grasshopper {locust, arthropod}.
Insects {louse} (Pediculidae) (Phthiraptera) can be small and wingless.
louse parasitic insect eggs or young {nit}.
Insects {flea} (Siphonaptera) can be small, wingless, and blood sucking.
Caribbean fleas {chigoe} can be skin infesting.
Bristletail (Zygentoma) and firebrat (Thysanura) {silverfish} are wingless and silver and eat book and cloth starch.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225