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.
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.
The froghoppers, or the superfamily Cercopoidea, are a group of hemipteran insects in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. Adults are capable of jumping many times their height and length, giving the group their common name, but many species are best known for their plant-sucking nymphs which produce foam shelters, and are referred to as "spittlebugs".
Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the superfamily Coccoidea due to taxonomic uncertainties. Adult females typically have soft bodies and no limbs, and are concealed underneath domed scales, extruding quantities of wax for protection. Some species are hermaphroditic, with a combined ovotestis instead of separate ovaries and testes. Males, in the species where they occur, have legs and sometimes wings, and resemble small flies. Scale insects are herbivores, piercing plant tissues with their mouthparts and remaining in one place, feeding on sap. The excess fluid they imbibe is secreted as honeydew on which sooty mold tends to grow. The insects often have a mutualistic relationship with ants, which feed on the honeydew and protect them from predators. There are about 8,000 described species.
Leafhopper is the common name for any species from the family Cicadellidae. These minute insects, colloquially known as hoppers, are plant feeders that suck plant sap from grass, shrubs, or trees. Their hind legs are modified for jumping, and are covered with hairs that facilitate the spreading of a secretion over their bodies that acts as a water repellent and carrier of pheromones. They undergo a partial metamorphosis, and have various host associations, varying from very generalized to very specific. Some species have a cosmopolitan distribution, or occur throughout the temperate and tropical regions. Some are pests or vectors of plant viruses and phytoplasmas. The family is distributed all over the world, and constitutes the second-largest hemipteran family, with at least 20,000 described species.
The Anopheles gambiae complex consists of at least seven morphologically indistinguishable species of mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles. The complex was recognised in the 1960s and includes the most important vectors of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly of the most dangerous malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. It is one of the most efficient malaria vectors known. The An. gambiae mosquito additionally transmits Wuchereria bancrofti which causes lymphatic filariasis, a symptom of which is elephantiasis.
The Pentatomomorpha comprise an infraorder of insects in the true bug order Hemiptera. It unites such animals as the stink bugs (Pentatomidae), flat bugs (Aradidae), seed bugs, etc. They are closely related to the Cimicomorpha.
The Auchenorrhyncha suborder of the Hemiptera contains most of the familiar members of what was called the "Homoptera" – groups such as cicadas, leafhoppers, treehoppers, planthoppers, and spittlebugs. The aphids and scale insects are the other well-known "Homoptera", and they are in the suborder Sternorrhyncha.
A planthopper is any insect in the infraorder Fulgoromorpha, in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, a group exceeding 12,500 described species worldwide. The name comes from their remarkable resemblance to leaves and other plants of their environment and that they often "hop" for quick transportation in a similar way to that of grasshoppers. However, planthoppers generally walk very slowly. Distributed worldwide, all members of this group are plant-feeders, though few are considered pests. The infraorder contains only a single superfamily, Fulgoroidea. Fulgoroids are most reliably distinguished from the other Auchenorrhyncha by two features; the bifurcate (Y-shaped) anal vein in the forewing, and the thickened, three-segmented antennae, with a generally round or egg-shaped second segment (pedicel) that bears a fine filamentous arista.
Machaerotidae are a family of bugs in the superfamily Cercopoidea which were formerly placed within Cercopidae. They are sometimes called tube-forming spittle-bugs as the nymphs form a calcareous tube within which they live. These bugs are mainly found in the Old World tropics. The adults of many genera have a long, free and spine-like process originating from the scutellum and thus superficially similar to the tree-hoppers, Membracidae. The tegmen or forewing, like typical bugs of the suborder Heteroptera, always has a distinct, membranous apical area.
Cercopidae are the largest family of Cercopoidea, a xylem-feeding insect group, commonly called froghoppers or spittlebugs. They belong to the hemipteran suborder Auchenorrhyncha. A 2023 phylogenetic study of the family suggested the elevation of subfamily Ischnorhininae to full family status as Ischnorhinidae, leaving a monophyletic Cercopinae.
Acyrthosiphon pisum, commonly known as the pea aphid, is a sap-sucking insect in the family Aphididae. It feeds on several species of legumes worldwide, including forage crops, such as pea, clover, alfalfa, and broad bean, and ranks among the aphid species of major agronomical importance. The pea aphid is a model organism for biological study whose genome has been sequenced and annotated.
Aphrophora alni, the European alder spittle bug, is a species belonging to the family Aphrophoridae.
Philaenus spumarius, the meadow froghopper or meadow spittlebug, is a species of insect belonging to the spittlebug family Aphrophoridae. In Italy and America, it is economically important as one of the vectors of Pierce's disease.
Eysarcoris is a genus of shield bugs belonging to the family Pentatomidae, subfamily Pentatominae, and typical of the tribe Eysarcorini.
"Candidatus Karelsulcia muelleri" is an aerobic, gram-negative, bacillus bacterium that is a part of the phylum Bacteroidota. "Ca. K. muelleri" is an obligate and mutualistic symbiotic microbe commonly found occupying specialized cell compartments of sap-feeding insects called bacteriocytes. A majority of the research done on "Ca. K. muelleri" has detailed its relationship with the host Homalodisca vitripennis. Other studies have documented the nature of its residency in other insects like the maize leafhopper (Cicadulina) or the spittlebug (Cercopoidea). "Ca. K. muelleri" is noted for its exceptionally minimal genome and it is currently identified as having the smallest known sequenced Bacteroidota genome at only 245 kilobases.
Verrallia aucta is a species of fly in the family Pipunculidae. It is found in the Palearctic.
Holocentric chromosomes are chromosomes that possess multiple kinetochores along their length rather than the single centromere typical of other chromosomes. They were first described in cytogenetic experiments in 1935. Since this first observation, the term holocentric chromosome has referred to chromosomes that: i) lack the primary constriction corresponding to the centromere observed in monocentric chromosomes; and ii) possess multiple kinetochores dispersed along the entire chromosomal axis, such that microtubules bind to the chromosome along its entire length and move broadside to the pole from the metaphase plate. Holocentric chromosomes are also termed holokinetic, because, during cell division, the sister chromatids move apart in parallel and do not form the classical V-shaped figures typical of monocentric chromosomes.
Nadejda "Nadia" Waloff FRES was a Russian-born English entomologist. She worked on the biology of locusts, flight and dispersal of the Hemiptera, and taught at Imperial College, Silwood Park campus.
Epipygidae is a lineage of froghoppers in the insect superfamily Cercopoidea. There are at least three genera and about five described species in Epipygidae, found in the American tropics. In addition, there are more than 20 undescribed species in the family. Molecular analyses indicate that the group is monophyletic, but is clearly nested within the family Aphrophoridae and is probably best relegated to the status of a subfamily or tribe, rather than retained as a separate family.
