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Brachypsectridae
The Brachypsectridae are a family of beetles commonly known as the Texas beetles. There are only two extant genera, '' Brachypsectra'' and '' Asiopsectra. Brachypsectra'' has a cosmopolitan distribution, mostly in arid regions, while ''Asiopsectra'' is found in Central Asia and the Middle East. Taxonomy The family is somewhat enigmatic since the discovery and description of the first species, ''Brachypsectra fulva''. This was originally included in the family Dascillidae, but was later placed in the new family Brachypsectridae by Horn (1881). While formerly considered monogeneric, in 2016 a new genus '' Asiopsectra'' was described from specimens found in Iran and Tajikistan. Two extinct genera, '' Vetubrachypsectra'' and '' Hongipsectra'', known from adults, and a larval genus, '' Cretopsectra'' are known from mid Cretaceous (latest Albian-earliest Cenomanian ~ 100 million years ago) Burmese amber. A fossil species of ''Brachypsectra,'' ''B. moronei'' is known from Miocene aged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brachypsectra Fulva
''Brachypsectra fulva'' is a species of beetle in the Brachypsectridae family commonly known as the Texas beetle. Distribution ''B. fulva'' occurs in Mexico and in the southern United States in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. Description This beetle has a light brown elongated oval body between four and eight millimetres long. The head is slightly wider than it is long and there are globular, protruding eyes. The antennae have ten segments, the distal six expanded on one side to form pectinate clubs, though these are less developed in the female. The prothorax is wider than it is long and widest posteriorly. The elytra have nine weakly impressed punctate striae and are broadly rounded at the posterior. The hind wings are as long as they are wide and have oblique, apically dividing, linear sclerites. The male beetle is smaller than the female and is much the same width for most of its length whereas the female is broadest in the posterio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burmese Amber
Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The amber is of significant palaeontological interest due to the diversity of flora and fauna contained as inclusions, particularly arthropods including insects and arachnids but also birds, lizards, snakes, frogs and fragmentary dinosaur remains. The amber has been known and commercially exploited since the first century AD, and has been known to science since the mid-nineteenth century. Research on the deposit has attracted controversy due to its alleged role in funding internal conflict in Myanmar and hazardous working conditions in the mines where it is collected. Geological context, depositional environment and age The amber is found within the Hukawng Basin, a large Cretaceous-Cenozoic sedimentary basin within northern Myanmar. The s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elateroidea
The Elateroidea are a large superfamily of beetles. It contains the familiar click beetles, fireflies, and soldier beetles and their relatives. It consists of about 25,000 species. Description Elateroidea is a morphologically diverse group, including hard-bodied beetles with 5 abdominal ventrites, soft-bodied beetles with 7-8 ventrites connected with membranes (formerly known as cantharoids), and beetles with intermediate forms. They have a range of sizes and colours, but in terms of shape, they are usually narrow and parallel-sided as adults. Many of the sclerotised elateroids (Cerophytidae, Eucnemidae, Throscidae, Elateridae) have a clicking mechanism. This is a peg on the prothorax which fits into a cavity in the mesothorax. When a click beetle bends its body, the peg snaps into the cavity, causing the beetle's body to straighten so suddenly that it jumps into the air. Most beetles capable of bioluminescence are in the Elateroidea, in the families Lampyridae (~2000 specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Floyd Ferris
Gordon Floyd Ferris (January 2, 1893, in Bayard, Kansas – May 21, 1958) was an American entomologist who served as professor of biology at Stanford University from 1912 to 1958 and earned a reputation for his teaching. He founded and edited the journal ''Microentomology,'' preferring to work on insects that could only be examined on microscopic slides''.'' He was a specialist on the systematics of the Coccoidea. Ferris was born in Bayard, Kansas, where his father was a railroad worker. When he was young the family moved to Monticello, Missouri, where they lived in a log cabin. His mother died when he was three and he went to live with his paternal grandparents in La Harpe, Kansas. Leslie, an older brother went to Ottawa and helped Ferris join Ottawa University in 1909. Ferris however was unable to complete studies and planned to join the navy. Leslie found Ferris a job the Telluride power company. The power company was interested in training its people, mostly at Cornell Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antenna (biology)
Antennae ( antenna), sometimes referred to as "feelers", are paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. Antennae are connected to the first one or two segments of the arthropod head. They vary widely in form but are always made of one or more jointed segments. While they are typically sensory organs, the exact nature of what they sense and how they sense it is not the same in all groups. Functions may variously include sensing touch, air motion, heat, vibration (sound), and especially smell or taste. Antennae are sometimes modified for other purposes, such as mating, brooding, swimming, and even anchoring the arthropod to a substrate. Larval arthropods have antennae that differ from those of the adult. Many crustaceans, for example, have free-swimming larvae that use their antennae for swimming. Antennae can also locate other group members if the insect lives in a group, like the ant. The common ancestor of all arthropods likely had one pair of uniramous (unbranched ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elytron
An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alternatively spelled as "hemielytra"), and in most species only the basal half is thickened while the apex is membranous, but when they are entirely thickened the condition is referred to as "coleopteroid". An elytron is sometimes also referred to as a shard. Description The elytra primarily serve as protective wing-cases for the hindwings underneath, which are used for flying. To fly, a beetle typically opens the elytra and then extends the hindwings, flying while still holding the elytra open, though many beetles in the families Scarabaeidae and Buprestidae can fly with the elytra closed (e.g., most Cetoniinae; ). In a number of groups, the elytra are reduced to various degrees, (e.g., the beetle families Staphylinidae and Ripiphoridae), o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltic Amber
The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber or succinite. It was produced sometime during the Eocene epoch, but exactly when is controversial. It has been estimated that these forests created more than 100,000 tons of amber. Today, more than 90% of the world's amber comes from Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. It is a major source of income for the region; the local Kaliningrad Amber Combine extracted 250 tonnes of it in 2014, 400 tonnes in 2015. "Baltic amber" was formerly thought to include amber from the Bitterfeld Lignite, brown coal mines in Saxony (Eastern Germany). Bitterfeld amber was previously believed to be only 20–22 million years old (Miocene), but a comparison of the animal inclusions in 2003 suggested that it was possibly Baltic amber that was redeposited in a Miocene deposit. Further study of insect taxa in the ambers has shown Bitterfeld amber to be from the same forest as the Baltic amber forest, but separately deposited f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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