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Agapostemon Texanus
''Agapostemon texanus'' is a species of bee found in North America. Commonly known as the metallic green sweat bee or the Texas striped sweat bee, it varies greatly in its appearance, with variations in color and in the amount of black markings on the legs. The flight season of ''A. texanus'' ranges from March to October with their peak activity happening in May to September. They transport pollen on their hind legs. Range ''A. texanus'' has the greatest range of any species in the genus ''Agapostemon''. It has been documented as far north as southern Canada and as far south as Costa Rica, but is most common to the west of the Mississippi River and on the west coast of the United States. Its range in the southwest United States is interrupted in arid areas. ''A. texanus'' can tolerate a wide range of elevation, documented from sea level all the way up to 8,000 feet in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. Description The head and thorax of both male and female ''Agapos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ezra Townsend Cresson
Ezra Townsend Cresson, also Ezra Townsend senior (18 June 1838, in Byberry – 19 April 1926, in Swarthmore) was an American entomologist who specialised in the Hymenoptera order of insects. He wrote ''Synopsis of the families and genera of the Hymenoptera of America, north of Mexico'' Philadelphia: Paul C. Stockhausen, Entomological printer (1887) and many other works. His son Ezra Townsend, Jr. (1876–1948) was also an entomologist but a specialist in Diptera. Cresson also documented many new species including ''Nomada texana ''Nomada texana'' is a species of bee native to the southern and western United States and other parts of North America (including Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sover ...''. References * Essig, E. O. 1931 ''A History of Entomology''. -New York, Macmillan Company. *Mallis, A. 1971 ''American Entomologists''. Rutgers Univ. Press New Brunswick 343-348, Portr. *Osborn, H. 1937 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Plate, North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the list of continents and continental subregions by population, fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in List of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America, 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In Americas (terminology)#Human ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agapostemon
The genus ''Agapostemon'' (literally "stamen loving") is a common group of Western Hemisphere sweat bees, most of which are known as ''metallic green sweat bees'' for their color. They are members of the family of bees known as Halictidae. Like other sweat bees, they are attracted to human sweat, and they use the salt from the sweat for nutrition. They are generally green or blue, especially the head and thorax. Sometimes the abdomen in females is green or blue although it may be striped, and most males have the yellow-striped abdomen on a black or metallic background. They superficially resemble various members of another tribe, Augochlorini, which are also typically metallic green. Nesting All species of ''Agapostemon'' nest in the ground, sometimes in dense aggregations. Some species are communal such as ''A. virescens''. In this and other communal species, multiple females share the same nest entrance, but beneath the common entrance burrow, construct their own portion of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is , of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the thirteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, an almost continuous chain of mountain ranges that forms the western "backbone" of the Americas. The Sierra runs north-south and its width ranges from to across east–west. Notable features include General Sherman, the largest tree in the world by volume; Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America; Mount Whitney at , the highest point in the contiguous United States; and Yosemite Valley sculpted by glaciers from one-hundred-million-year-old granite, containing high waterfalls. The Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks; and Devils Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halictinae
Within the insect order Hymenoptera, the Halictinae are the largest, most diverse, and most recently diverged of the four halictid subfamilies. They comprise over 2400 bee species belonging to the five taxonomic tribes Augochlorini, Thrinchostomini, Caenohalictini, Sphecodini, and Halictini, which some entomologists alternatively organize into the two tribes Augochlorini and Halictini. The subfamily Halictinae also belongs to the hymenopteran monophyletic clade Aculeata, whose members are characterized by the possession of a modified ovipositor in the form of a venomous sting for predator and prey defense. Including all eusocial and cleptoparasitic Halictidae taxa, these small bees are pollen feeders who mass provision their young and exhibit a broad spectrum of behavioral social polymorphies, ranging from solitary nesting to obligate eusociality. Estimated from the fossil record, eusociality in this subfamily evolved about 20 to 22 million years ago, which is relatively ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generalist And Specialist Species
A generalist species is able to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different resources (for example, a heterotroph with a varied diet). A specialist species can thrive only in a narrow range of environmental conditions or has a limited diet. Most organisms do not all fit neatly into either group, however. Some species are highly specialized (the most extreme case being monophagous, eating one specific type of food), others less so, and some can tolerate many different environments. In other words, there is a continuum from highly specialized to broadly generalist species. Description Omnivores are usually generalists. Herbivores are often specialists, but those that eat a variety of plants may be considered generalists. A well-known example of a specialist animal is the monophagous koala, which subsists almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves. The raccoon is a generalist, because it has a natural range that includes most of North ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomisidae
The Thomisidae are a family of spiders, including about 170 genera and over 2,100 species. The common name crab spider is often linked to species in this family, but is also applied loosely to many other families of spiders. Many members of this family are also known as flower spiders or flower crab spiders. Description Members of this family of spiders do not spin webs, and are ambush predators. The two front legs are usually longer and more robust than the rest of the legs. The back two legs are smaller, and are usually covered in a series of strong spines. They have dull colorations such as brown, grey, or very bright green, pink, white or yellow. They gain their name from the shape of their body, and they usually move sideways or backwards. These spiders are quite easy to identify and can very rarely be confused with Sparassidae family, though the crab spiders are usually smaller. Etymology Spiders in this family are called "crab spiders" due to their resemblance to crabs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phymatinae
Insects in the subfamily Phymatinae are commonly called ambush bugs after their habit of lying in wait for prey, relying on their superb camouflage. Armed with raptorial forelegs, ambush bugs routinely capture prey ten or more times their own size. They form a subgroup within the assassin bugs. Description Phymatinae are long. The most distinguishable trait of this group is the presence of pronounced raptorial forelegs. In ''Phymata'', the scutellum (insect), scutellum is triangular and shorter than the pronotum. In ''Macrocephalus'', the scutellum is narrow and rounded, extending to the tip of the abdomen. Phymatinae normally have a large fore arthropod leg, femur and clubbed Antenna (biology), antennae. The forewing Biological membrane, membranes sometimes lack distinct Cell (biology), cells. The antennae have four segments. There are two ocelli. The beak has three segments. The arthropod leg, tarsi also have three segments. The rear half of the abdomen expands beyond th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sphecidae
The Sphecidae are a cosmopolitan family of wasps of the suborder Apocrita that includes sand wasps, mud daubers, and other thread-waisted wasps. The name Sphecidae was formerly given to a much larger grouping of wasps. This was found to be paraphyletic, so most of the old subfamilies have been moved to the Crabronidae. Biology The biology of the Sphecidae, even under the restricted definition, is still fairly diverse; some sceliphrines even display rudimentary forms of sociality, and some sphecines rear multiple larvae in a single large brood cell. Many nest in pre-existing cavities, or dig simple burrows in the soil, but some species construct free-standing nests of mud and even (in one genus) resin. All are predatory and parasitoidal, but the type of prey ranges from spiders to various dictyopterans, orthopteroids and larvae of either Lepidoptera or other Hymenoptera; the vast majority practice mass provisioning, providing all the prey items prior to laying the egg. Phylo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asilidae
The Asilidae are the robber fly family, also called assassin flies. They are powerfully built, bristly flies with a short, stout proboscis enclosing the sharp, sucking hypopharynx. The name "robber flies" reflects their notoriously aggressive predatory habits; they feed mainly or exclusively on other insects and, as a rule, they wait in ambush and catch their prey in flight. Overview The Asilidae are a family in the order Diptera, the true flies. The common name for members of the family is the robber flies. The Asilidae are cosmopolitan, with over 7000 described species. Latreille was the authority for establishing the family in 1802. The Asilidae, together with Bombyliidae and Therevidae, are the most representative families of the superfamily of Asiloidea and they form one of the most characteristic groups of the lower Brachycera. Robber flies have stout, spiny legs and three simple eyes (ocelli) in a characteristic depression on the tops of their head between their two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blister Beetle
Blister beetles are beetles of the family Meloidae, so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin. About 7,500 species are known worldwide. Many are conspicuous and some are aposematically colored, announcing their toxicity to would-be predators. Description Blister beetles are hypermetamorphic, going through several larval stages, the first of which is typically a mobile triungulin. The larvae are insectivorous, mainly attacking bees, though a few feed on grasshopper eggs. While sometimes considered parasitoids, in general, the meloid larva apparently consumes the immature host along with its provisions, and can often survive on the provisions alone; thus it is not an obligatory parasitoid, but rather a facultative parasitoid, or simply a kleptoparasite. The adults sometimes feed on flowers and leaves of plants of such diverse families as the Amaranthaceae, Asteraceae, Fabaceae, and Solanaceae. Cantharidin, a poisonous chemical that causes bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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