The Strepsiptera are an order of insects with eleven extant families that include about 600 described species. They are endoparasites in other insects, such as bees, wasps, leafhoppers, silverfish, and cockroaches. Females of most species never emerge from the host after entering its body, finally dying inside it. The early-stage larvae do emerge because they must find an unoccupied living host, and the short-lived males must emerge to seek a receptive female in her host. They are believed to be most closely related to beetles, from which they diverged 300–350 million years ago, but do not appear in the fossil record until the mid-Cretaceous around 100 million years ago.
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 an estimated 1,000,000 species including horse-flies, crane flies, hoverflies and others, although only about 125,000 species have been described.
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.
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages thereof being egg, larva, pupa, and imago. The processes of entering and completing the pupal stage are controlled by the insect's hormones, especially juvenile hormone, prothoracicotropic hormone, and ecdysone. The act of becoming a pupa is called pupation, and the act of emerging from the pupal case is called eclosion or emergence.
The Miridae are a large and diverse insect family at one time known by the taxonomic synonym Capsidae. Species in the family may be referred to as capsid bugs or "mirid bugs". Common names include plant bugs, leaf bugs, and grass bugs. It is the largest family of true bugs belonging to the suborder Heteroptera; it includes over 10,000 known species, and new ones are being described constantly. Most widely known mirids are species that are notorious agricultural pests that pierce plant tissues, feed on the sap, and sometimes transmit viral plant diseases. Some species however, are predatory.
River stingrays or freshwater stingrays are Neotropical freshwater fishes of the family Potamotrygonidae in the order Myliobatiformes, one of the four orders of batoids, cartilaginous fishes related to sharks. They are found in rivers in tropical and subtropical South America. A single marine genus, Styracura, of the tropical West Atlantic and East Pacific are also part of Potamotrygonidae. They are generally brownish, greyish or black, often with a mottled, speckled or spotted pattern, have disc widths ranging from 31 to 200 centimetres (1.0–6.6 ft) and venomous tail stingers. River stingrays feed on a wide range of smaller animals and the females give birth to live young. There are more than 35 species in five genera.
Stylopidae is a family of twisted-winged insects in the order Strepsiptera. There are about 15 genera and more than 330 described species in Stylopidae.
The Corioxenidae are an insect family of the order Strepsiptera. Species in this family are parasites of heteropteran bugs including the Pentatomidae, Scutelleridae, Cydnidae, Coreidae, and Lygaeidae. The males lack mandibles. Three subfamilies within this family are recognized. The subfamilies are separated using morphology of the males, particularly on the basis of the number of tarsi and the presence of tarsal claws.
Myrmecolacidae is an insect family of the order Strepsiptera. There are four genera and about 98 species in this family. Like all strepsipterans, they have a parasitic mode of development with males parasitizing ants while the females develop inside Orthoptera. The sexes differ greatly in morphology making it very difficult to match females to the better catalogued museum specimens of males.
Lepismatidae is a family of primitive wingless insects with about 190 described species. This family contains the two most familiar members of the order Zygentoma: the silverfish and the firebrat. It is one of five families in the order Zygentoma.
Amphiesmenoptera is an insect superorder, established by S. G. Kiriakoff, but often credited to Willi Hennig in his revision of insect taxonomy for two sister orders: Lepidoptera and Trichoptera (caddisflies). In 2017, a third fossil order was added to the group, the Tarachoptera.
The roughnose wedgefish is a species of fish in the Rhinidae family. It is found in Indonesia and Singapore. Its natural habitats are open seas, shallow seas, coral reefs, estuarine waters, and coastal saline lagoons. It is threatened by habitat loss. Despite having been known for more than a decade, it remained undescribed until 2016. This is a relatively small species, reaching up to 81 cm (2.66 ft) in length. Adults are greenish-brown above; young have white spots.
Wildlife of Sri Lanka includes its flora and fauna and their natural habitats. Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of biological endemism in the world.
Bahiaxenos relictus is the sole member of the family Bahiaxenidae, a type of winged insect. It was only discovered and described in 2009 from relictual sand dunes associated with the Rio São Francisco in Bahia, Brazil. It is considered to be the most basal living member of the order Strepsiptera, so is the sister taxon to the remaining extant species. It is known from only a single male specimen, and its biology is unknown.
Stylops is a genus of obligately endoparasitic insects in the family Stylopidae. Hosts are typically members of the order Hymenoptera.
Stylops melittae is a species of the order Strepsiptera of flying insects, that parasitize various species of sand bees (Andrena).
Caenocholax is a genus of twisted-winged insects in the family Myrmecolacidae. There are about nine described species in Caenocholax.
Hymenopterida is a superorder of insects, comprising Hymenoptera and the orders of Panorpida . The superorder is a member of Endopterygota and most closely related to the orders of Neuropterida and Coleopterida.
