The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typically its form is adapted to functions such as preparing a place for the egg, transmitting the egg, and then placing it properly. For most insects, the organ is used merely to attach the egg to some surface, but for many parasitic species, it is a piercing organ as well.
Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran suborder Rhopalocera, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the superfamilies Hedyloidea and Papilionoidea. The oldest butterfly fossils have been dated to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago, though they may have originated earlier.
The cicadas are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera. They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two families, the Tettigarctidae, with two species in Australia, and the Cicadidae, with more than 3,000 species described from around the world; many species remain undescribed.
Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving live birth to female nymphs—who may also be already pregnant, an adaptation scientists call telescoping generations—without the involvement of males. Maturing rapidly, females breed profusely so that the number of these insects multiplies quickly. Winged females may develop later in the season, allowing the insects to colonize new plants. In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs.
Stridulation is the act of producing sound by rubbing together certain body parts. This behavior is mostly associated with insects, but other animals are known to do this as well, such as a number of species of fish, snakes and spiders. The mechanism is typically that of one structure with a well-defined lip, ridge, or nodules being moved across a finely-ridged surface or vice versa, and vibrating as it does so, like the dragging of a phonograph needle across a vinyl record. Sometimes it is the structure bearing the file which resonates to produce the sound, but in other cases it is the structure bearing the scraper, with both variants possible in related groups. Common onomatopoeic words for the sounds produced by stridulation include chirp and chirrup.
Hemiptera is an order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising over 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, assassin bugs, bed bugs, and shield bugs. They range in size from 1 mm (0.04 in) to around 15 cm (6 in), and share a common arrangement of piercing-sucking mouthparts. The name "true bugs" is often limited to the suborder Heteroptera.
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.
The superfamily Ichneumonoidea contains one extinct and three extant families, including the two largest families within Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae and Braconidae. The group is thought to contain as many as 100,000 species, many of which have not yet been described. Like other parasitoid wasps, they were long placed in the "Parasitica", variously considered as an infraorder or an unranked clade, now known to be paraphyletic.
Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids, some scale insects, and many other true bugs and some other insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the insects, allowing them to rapidly process the large volume of sap required to extract essential nutrients present at low concentrations. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis. Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. In addition to various sugars, honeydew contains small amounts of amino acids, other organic compounds, and inorganic salts with its precise makeup affected by factors such as insect species, host plant species, and whether a symbiotic organism is present.
In zoology, a palynivore /pəˈlɪnəvɔːɹ/, meaning "pollen eater" is an herbivorous animal which selectively eats the nutrient-rich pollen produced by angiosperms and gymnosperms. Most true palynivores are insects or mites. The category in its strictest application includes most bees, and a few kinds of wasps, as pollen is often the only solid food consumed by all life stages in these insects. However, the category can be extended to include more diverse species. For example, palynivorous mites and thrips typically feed on the liquid content of the pollen grains without actually consuming the exine, or the solid portion of the grain. Additionally, the list is expanded greatly if one takes into consideration species where either the larval or adult stage feeds on pollen, but not both. There are other wasps which are in this category, as well as many beetles, flies, butterflies, and moths. One such example of a bee species that only consumes pollen in its larval stage is the Apis mellifera carnica. There is a vast array of insects that will feed opportunistically on pollen, as will various birds, orb-weaving spiders and other nectarivores.
Minuscule is a French live action and CGI TV series, produced by Futurikon and created by Hélène Giraud and Thomas Szabo. The TV series comes in the form of short segments – focusing mostly on a variety of insects – where their mundane, everyday lives take on a humorous turn. Superimposing stylized characters over real-life scenery, the main characters' comical scenarios come in the form of silent comedy. Aside from the main characters, animals and humans may also show up in minor roles, but the show does not utilize any proper spoken dialogue.
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.
It's Tough to Be a Bug! is a 9-minute-long 3D film based on the 1998 Disney·Pixar film A Bug's Life, using theater lighting, 3-D filming techniques, audio-animatronics and various special effects. Flik, a character from the movie, hosts the show and educates the audience on why bugs should be considered friends. It was the first Pixar attraction to open in a Disney park.
BugGuide is a website and online community of naturalists, both amateur and professional, who share observations of arthropods such as insects, spiders, and other related creatures. The website consists of informational guide pages and many thousands of photographs of arthropods from the United States and Canada which are used for identification and research. The non-commercial site is hosted by the Iowa State University Department of Entomology. BugGuide was conceived by photographer Troy Bartlett in 2003 and since 2006 has been maintained by John VanDyk, an adjunct assistant professor of entomology and a senior systems analyst at Iowa State University. The website has been recognized for helping change the public perception of insects.
Human interactions with insects include both a wide variety of uses, whether practical such as for food, textiles, and dyestuffs, or symbolic, as in art, music, and literature, and negative interactions including damage to crops and extensive efforts to control insect pests.
Insects have appeared in literature from classical times to the present day, an aspect of their role in culture more generally. Insects represent both positive qualities like cooperation and hard work, and negative ones like greed.
Insect names have appeared in music from Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" to such popular songs as "Blue-tailed Fly" and the folk song La Cucaracha which is about a cockroach. Insect groups mentioned include bees, ants, flies and the various singing insects such as cicadas, crickets, and beetles, while other songs refer to bugs in general.
Insects have found uses in art, as in other aspects of culture, both symbolically and physically, from ancient times. Artforms include the direct usage of beetlewing (elytra) in paintings, textiles, and jewellery, as well as the representation of insects in fine arts such as paintings and sculpture. Insects have sometimes formed characteristic features of artforms, as in Art Nouveau jewellery.
Neotibicen pruinosus, commonly known as the scissor grinder, is a species of cicada in the family Cicadidae.
