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Mallophora Bomboides
''Mallophora bomboides'', also known as the Florida bee killer, is a predaceous species of robber fly of the family Asilidae that feeds primarily on bumblebees. ''M. bomboides'' is a noteworthy instance of Batesian mimicry given its close resemblance to its prey, the bumblebee. These bees are typically found in the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States like South Carolina and Florida. Physical description ''M. bomboides'' typically have three basal abdominal tergites densely covered with yellow hairs. The fourth and fifth tergites have black hairs, and the final two segments have pale hairs. The ventrum of the abdomen is adorned with yellow hairs. The average body length of ''M. bomboides'' is about 25 mm. Distribution Geographical distribution ''M. bomboides'' occurs in the southeastern United States in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. Phenology Flight time in Florida is from April through Decemb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida and Cuba; it is the only state that borders both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Spanning , Florida ranks 22nd in area among the 50 states, and with a population of over 21 million, it is the third-most populous. The state capital is Tallahassee, and the most populous city is Jacksonville. The Miami metropolitan area, with a population of almost 6.2 million, is the most populous urban area in Florida and the ninth-most populous in the United States; other urban conurbations with over one million people are Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Jacksonville. Various Native American groups have inhabited Florida for at least 14,000 years. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The larva's appearance is generally very different from the adult form (''e.g.'' caterpillars and butterflies) including different unique structures and organs that do not occur in the adult form. Their diet may also be considerably different. Larvae are frequently adapted to different environments than adults. For example, some larvae such as tadpoles live almost exclusively in aquatic environments, but can live outside water as adult frogs. By living in a distinct environment, larvae may be given shelter from predators and reduce competition for resources with the adult population. Animals in the larval stage will consume food to fuel their transition into the adult form. In some organisms like polychaetes and barnacles, adults are immobil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include '' Steps to an Ecology of Mind'' (1972) and ''Mind and Nature'' (1979). In Palo Alto, California, Bateson and colleagues developed the double-bind theory of schizophrenia. Bateson's interest in systems theory forms a thread running through his work. He was one of the original members of the core group of the Macy conferences in Cybernetics (1941–1960), and the later set on Group Processes (1954–1960), where he represented the social and behavioral sciences. He was interested in the relationship of these fields to epistemology. His association with the editor and author Stewart Brand helped widen his influence. Early life and education Bateson was born in Grantchester in Cambridgeshire, England, on 9 May 1904. He was the third and youngest son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aggressive Mimicry
Aggressive mimicry is a form of mimicry in which predators, parasites, or parasitoids share similar signals, using a harmless model, allowing them to avoid being correctly identified by their prey or host. Zoologists have repeatedly compared this strategy to a wolf in sheep's clothing. In its broadest sense, aggressive mimicry could include various types of exploitation, as when an orchid exploits a male insect by mimicking a sexually receptive female (see pseudocopulation), but will here be restricted to forms of exploitation involving feeding. An alternative term Peckhamian mimicry (after George and Elizabeth Peckham) has been suggested, but is seldom used. For example, indigenous Australians who dress up as and imitate kangaroos when hunting would not be considered aggressive mimics, nor would a human angler, though they are undoubtedly practising self-decoration camouflage. Treated separately is molecular mimicry, which shares some similarity; for instance a virus may mimic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Bagnall Poulton
Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton, FRS HFRSE FLS (27 January 1856 – 20 November 1943) was a British evolutionary biologist, a lifelong advocate of natural selection through a period in which many scientists such as Reginald Punnett doubted its importance. He invented the term sympatric for evolution of species in the same place, and in his book ''The Colours of Animals'' (1890) was the first to recognise frequency-dependent selection. Poulton is also remembered for his pioneering work on animal coloration. He is credited with inventing the term aposematism for warning coloration, as well as for his experiments on 'protective coloration' (camouflage). Poulton became Hope Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford in 1893. Life Edward Poulton was born in Reading, Berkshire on 27 January 1856 the son of the architect William Ford Poulton and his wife, Georgina Sabrina Bagnall. He was educated at Oakley House School in Reading. Between 1873 and 1876, Poulton studied at Jesu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. His 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting, and quickly write an abstract of it, published in 1859 as ''On the Origin of Species''. Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin. He then did fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volucella
''Volucella'' is a genus of large, broad-bodied, dramatic hover-flies. They have distinctive plumose aristae and the face is extended downward. They are strongly migratory and males are often territorial. Adults feed on nectar of flowers and are often seen sunning on leaves. The larvae of most species live in nests of bumblebees and social wasps, where they are detritivores and larval predators. Selected species *''Volucella anastasia'' Hull, 1946 *''Volucella arctica'' Johnson , 1916 *''Volucella bombylans'' (Linnaeus, 1758) *''Volucella dracaena'' Curran *''Volucella elegans'' Loew, 1862 *''Volucella eugenia'' Williston, 1887 *''Volucella evecta'' Walker , 1852 *''Volucella facialis'' Williston , 1882 *''Volucella inanis'' (Linnaeus, 1758) *''Volucella inflata'' ( Fabricius, 1794) *''Volucella jeddona'' Bigot, 1875 *'' Volucella linearis'' Walker, 1849 *'' Volucella liquida'' Erichson in Wagner, 1841 *'' Volucella lutzi'' Curran, 1930 *'' Volucella matsumurai'' H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoverfly
Hover flies, also called flower flies or syrphid flies, make up the insect family Syrphidae. As their common name suggests, they are often seen hovering or nectaring at flowers; the adults of many species feed mainly on nectar and pollen, while the larvae (maggots) eat a wide range of foods. In some species, the larvae are saprotrophs, eating decaying plant and animal matter in the soil or in ponds and streams. In other species, the larvae are insectivores and prey on aphids, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects. Insects such as aphids are considered a crop pest, and therefore the aphid-eating larvae of some hover flies serve as an economically (as well as ecologically) important predator and even potential agents for use in biological control, while the adults may be pollinators. About 6,000 species in 200 genera have been described. Hover flies are common throughout the world and can be found on all continents except Antarctica. Hover flies are harmless to most mammals, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Spence (entomologist)
William Spence (c.1783 – 6 January 1860) was a British economist and entomologist. Spence was born in Bishop Burton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the oldest of four children of farmer Robert Spence. He was apprenticed to Russian merchants and shipowners Carhill, Greenwood & Co. but little else is known about his early life except that at the age of ten he was in the care of a clergyman who taught him botany. He married Elizabeth Blundell in Hull on 30 June 1804 and very soon supported her brother Henry to set up the highly successful oil and colour company Blundell Spence. He was the father of artist and art dealer William Blundell Spence. He became interested in entomology when he was 22 and immediately began a correspondence with leading entomologist William Kirby. Together they wrote Introduction to Entomology', published in four volumes between 1815 and 1826, the first popular book on entomology in English. Spence also published some 20 notes on entomology. In 182 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Kirby (entomologist)
William Kirby (19 September 1759 – 4 July 1850) was an English entomologist, an original member of the Linnean Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society, as well as a country rector, so that he was an eminent example of the "parson-naturalist". The four-volume ''Introduction to Entomology'', co-written with William Spence, was widely influential. Family origins and early studies Kirby was a grandson of the Suffolk topographer John Kirby (author of ''The Suffolk Traveller'') and nephew of artist-topographer Joshua Kirby (a friend of Thomas Gainsborough's). He was also a cousin of the children's author Sarah Trimmer. His parents were William Kirby, a solicitor, and Lucy Meadows. He was born on 19 September 1759 at Witnesham, Suffolk, and studied at Ipswich School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1781. Taking holy orders in 1782, he spent his entire working life in the peaceful seclusion of an English country parsonage at Barham in Suffolk, working at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spontaneous Generation
Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh. The doctrine of spontaneous generation was coherently synthesized by Aristotle, who compiled and expanded the work of earlier natural philosophers and the various ancient explanations for the appearance of organisms. Spontaneous generation was taken as scientific fact for two millennia. Though challenged in the 17th and 18th centuries by the experiments of Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani, it was not discredited until the work of the French chemist Louis Pasteur and the Irish physicist John Tyndall in the mid-19th century. Rejection of spontaneous generation is no longer controversial among biologists. By the middle of the 19th century, experiments by Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beekeeper
A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. The beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper owns the hives or boxes and associated equipment. The bees are free to forage or leave (swarm) as they desire. Bees usually return to the beekeeper's hive as the hive presents a clean, dark, sheltered home. Purposes of beekeeping Value of honey bees Honey bees produce commodities such as honey, beeswax, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly. Some beekeepers also raise queens and other bees to sell to other farmers, and to satisfy scientific curiosity. Beekeepers also use honeybees to provide pollination services to fruit and vegetable growers. Many people keep bees as a hobby. Others do it for income either as a sideline to other work or as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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