Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniotic, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all tetrapods excluding the amniotes. All extant (living) amphibians belong to the monophyletic subclass Lissamphibia, with three living orders: Anura, Urodela (salamanders), and Gymnophiona (caecilians). Evolved to be mostly semiaquatic, amphibians have adapted to inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living in freshwater, wetland or terrestrial ecosystems. Their life cycle typically starts out as aquatic larvae with gills known as tadpoles, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this.
A mammal is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia. Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles and birds, from which their ancestors diverged in the Carboniferous Period over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described and divided into 27 orders. The study of mammals is called mammalogy.
Lepidoptera or lepidopterans is an order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organisms, making it the second largest insect order with 126 families and 46 superfamilies, and one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world.
Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- di- "two", and πτερόν pteron "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced mechanosensory organs known as halteres, which act as high-speed sensors of rotational movement and allow dipterans to perform advanced aerobatics. Diptera is a large order containing more than 150,000 species including horse-flies, crane flies, hoverflies, mosquitoes and others.
Earwigs make up the insect order Dermaptera. With about 2,000 species in 12 families, they are one of the smaller insect orders. Earwigs have characteristic cerci, a pair of forceps-like pincers on their abdomen, and membranous wings folded underneath short, rarely used forewings, hence the scientific order name, "skin wings". Some groups are tiny parasites on mammals and lack the typical pincers. Earwigs are found on all continents except Antarctica.
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches.
The saddleback toads (Brachycephalus) are a genus of tiny toads and frogs in the family Brachycephalidae in the order Anura, ranging from south Bahia to Santa Catarina in southeastern Brazil. The genus includes two main groups, the often brightly coloured pumpkin toadlets, and the overall brown and more frog-like flea frogs, which once were placed in their own genus Psyllophryne. Some pumpkin toadlets are toxic and their often bright colours are considered aposematic. At about 1 cm (0.4 in) or less in snout–vent length, the flea frogs are some of the smallest frogs in the world.
The garden tiger moth or great tiger moth is a moth of the family Erebidae. Arctia caja is a northern species found in the US, Canada, and Europe. The moth prefers cold climates with temperate seasonality, as the larvae overwinter, and preferentially chooses host plants that produce pyrrolizidine alkaloids. However, garden tiger moths are generalists, and will pick many different plants to use as larval host plants.
The human flea – once also called the house flea – is a cosmopolitan flea species that has, in spite of the common name, a wide host spectrum. It is one of six species in the genus Pulex; the other five are all confined to the Nearctic and Neotropical realms. The species is thought to have originated in South America, where its original host may have been the guinea pig or peccary.
Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, to spawn refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water ; the physical act is known as spawning. The vast majority of aquatic and amphibious animals reproduce through spawning. These include the following groups:
Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote that develops into an organism composed of cells with two sets of chromosomes (diploid). This is typical in animals, though the number of chromosome sets and how that number changes in sexual reproduction varies, especially among plants, fungi, and other eukaryotes.
Arixeniidae is a family of earwigs in the suborder Neodermaptera. Arixeniidae was formerly considered a suborder, Arixeniina, but was reduced in rank to family and included in the new suborder Neodermaptera.
Arixenia is a genus of earwigs, one of only two genera in the family Arixeniidae, and contains two species. These earwigs live on bats and feed off their dead skin, being commensalistic symbionts.
Arixenia camura is a species of earwigs, one of two species in the genus Arixenia. Found in the hollows of trees but not in caves.
Insects are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and a pair of antennae. Insects are the most diverse group of animals, with more than a million described species; they represent more than half of all animal species.
Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera. With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium. The smallest bat, and arguably the smallest extant mammal, is Kitti's hog-nosed bat, which is 29–34 mm (1.1–1.3 in) in length, 150 mm (5.9 in) across the wings and 2–2.6 g (0.071–0.092 oz) in mass. The largest bats are the flying foxes, with the giant golden-crowned flying fox reaching a weight of 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) and having a wingspan of 1.7 m.
The external morphology of Lepidoptera is the physiological structure of the bodies of insects belonging to the order Lepidoptera, also known as butterflies and moths. Lepidoptera are distinguished from other orders by the presence of scales on the external parts of the body and appendages, especially the wings. Butterflies and moths vary in size from microlepidoptera only a few millimetres long, to a wingspan of many inches such as the Atlas moth. Comprising over 160,000 described species, the Lepidoptera possess variations of the basic body structure which has evolved to gain advantages in adaptation and distribution.
Neorickettsia risticii, formerly Ehrlichia risticii, is an obligate intracellular gram-negative bacterium that typically lives as an endosymbiont in parasitic flatworms, specifically flukes. N. risticii is the known causative agent of equine neorickettsiosis, which gets its name from its discovery near the Potomac River in Maryland and Virginia. N. risticii was first recovered from horses in this region in 1984 but was not recognized as the causative agent of PHF until 1979. Potomac horse fever is currently endemic in the United States but has also been reported with lower frequency in other regions, including Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, and Europe. PHF is a condition that is clinically important for horses since it can cause serious signs such as fever, diarrhea, colic, and laminitis. PHF has a fatality rate of approximately 30%, making this condition a concern for horse owners in endemic regions. N. risticii is typically acquired in the middle to late summer near freshwater streams or rivers, as well as on irrigated pastures. This is a seasonal infection because it relies on the ingestion of an arthropod vector, which is more commonly found on pasture in the summer months. Although N. risticii is a well known causative agent for PHF in horses, it may act as a potential pathogen in cats and dogs as well. Not only has N. risticii been successfully cultured from monocytes of dogs and cats, but cats have become clinically ill after experimental infection with the bacteria. In addition, N. risticii has been isolated and cultured from human histiocytic lymphoma cells.
Chrysis ignita is a species of cuckoo wasp. It is one of a group of species which are difficult to separate and which may be referred to as ruby-tailed wasps.
Enischnomyia is an extinct genus of bat fly in the family Streblidae. At the time of its description the new genus comprised a single species, Enischnomyia stegosoma, known from a single Miocene fossil found on Hispaniola. E. stegosoma was the first fossil streblid bat fly described from a fossil, and the only member of the subfamily Nycterophiliinae described from Hispaniola. The species is host for the plasmodiid Vetufebrus ovatus preserved in its salivary glands and midgut.
