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Sceliphron Laetum
''Sceliphron laetum'' is a wasp in the family Sphecidae, the mud-dauber wasps. Like other members of this genus, it is a solitary species and builds cells out of mud in which to rear its young, provisioning them with paralysed spiders, and laying an egg in each. This wasp is native to Australia and southeastern Asia. Description Like other members of the family Specidae, the first abdominal segment of ''S. laetum'' has been modified into an elongated, slender petiole. This wasp is long and is largely black, with bold yellow markings. It has membranous wings which fold over the body when at rest. Its head is clad with yellow hairs which thin out ventrally. It lacks an area of bare yellow skin on the lower part of the face which is present in the otherwise similar '' Sceliphron formosum''. The thorax has one or more yellow patches dorsally between the wings. The hind tip of the thorax, the petiole and the front part of the gaster are yellow, the bulbous central portion of the gas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Smith (entomologist)
Frederick Smith (30 December 1805 – 16 February 1879) was a British entomologist who worked at the zoology department of the British Museum from 1849, specialising in the Hymenoptera. Smith was born near York to William Smith and went to school at Leeds. He then studied under landscape engraver W.B. Cooke along with his nephew William Edward Shuckard. Together they took an interest in insects, especially the ants and bees. In 1841, following the death of William Bainbridge, he became a curator of the collections and the library of the Entomological Society of London. As an engraver he produced copies based on the works of Turner, Constable and David Roberts. He also worked with Gray arranging Hymenoptera in the British Museum. In 1849 he succeeded Edward Doubleday as a member of the zoologicy department. He then gave up his art work but produced the plates for Wollaston's ''Insecta Maderensia'' (1854) and for papers in the Transactions of the Entomological Society. In 1875, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wasp
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can Stinger, sting their prey. The most commonly known wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are Eusociality, eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual haplodiploid system of sex-determination system, sex determination in Hymenoptera, as it makes sisters exceptionally closely related to each other. However, the majority of wasp species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family ( la, familia, plural ') is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". What belongs to a family—or if a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family, but in plants, they can be characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive features of plant species. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opi ... [...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. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ... country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approx ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sceliphron Formosum
''Sceliphron'', also known as black mud daubers or black mud-dauber wasps, is a genus of Hymenoptera of the Sphecidae family of wasps. They are solitary mud daubers and build nests made of mud. Nests are frequently constructed in shaded niches, often just inside of windows or vent openings, and it may take a female only a day to construct a cell requiring dozens of trips carrying mud. Females will add new cells one by one to the nest after each cell is provisioned. They provision these nests with spiders, such as crab spiders, orb-weaver spiders and jumping spiders in particular, as food for the developing larvae. Each mud cell contains one egg and is provided with several prey items. Females of some species lay a modest average of 15 eggs over their whole lifespan. Various parasites attack these nests, including several species of cuckoo wasps, primarily by sneaking into the nest while the resident mud dauber is out foraging. As is the case with many insect genera, there are man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaster (insect Anatomy)
The gaster is the bulbous posterior portion of the metasoma found in hymenopterans of the suborder Apocrita (bees, wasps and ants). This begins with abdominal segment III on most ants, but some make a constricted postpetiole out of segment III, in which case the gaster begins with abdominal segment IV. Certain ants in the genus ''Cataglyphis'', specifically '' Cataglyphis bicolor'' and '' Cataglyphis fortis'', have a cubiform petiole that allows them to decrease their inertia Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law o ... (and therefore increase their speed) by raising their gaster into an upright position. References Insect anatomy {{insect-anatomy-stub de:Gaster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argiope (spider)
The genus ''Argiope'' includes rather large spiders that often have a strikingly coloured abdomen. These spiders are distributed throughout the world. Most countries in tropical or temperate climates host one or more species that are similar in appearance. The etymology of ''Argiope'' is from a Latin word ''argentum'' meaning silver. The carapace of ''Argiope'' species is typically covered in silvery hairs, and when crawling in the sun, they reflect it in a way that gives them a metallic, white appearance. Description As most orb weavers, they own a third claw which is used to weave their complex webs. As most spiders, there is also a significant amount of sexual dimorphism, females measuring 19 to 28mm and males measuring 5 to 9mm. Their webs are relatively big, usually with zigzag patterns in them. They own black and yellow patterning all around their body, occasionally on their legs. Their legs mainly being black, with red or yellow patterning closer to the body. Their cep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoscona
''Neoscona'', known as spotted orb-weavers and barn spiders, is a genus of orb-weaver spiders (Araneidae) first described by Eugène Simon in 1895 to separate these from other araneids in the now obsolete genus ''Epeira''. The name ''Neoscona'' was derived from the Greek , meaning "spin", and , meaning " reed" They have a mostly pantropical distribution and one species, ''Neoscona adianta'', has a palearctic distribution. there are eight species that can be found in the United States and Canada: Description ''Neoscona'' species are among the most common spiders in North America and are found throughout most parts of the world. There are large variations in the dorsal patterns and coloration of the abdomen, even in a single species. Most have a light color with wavy edges along the mid-line, and darker swirls either side of that. Ventral abdominal patterns may consist of a dark area bordered by white, roughly forming a square. In adults the pattern can be faded. The venter of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiny Orb-weaver
''Gasteracantha'' is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first named by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. Species of the genus are known as spiny-backed orb-weavers, spiny orb-weavers, or spiny spiders. The females of most species are brightly colored with six prominent spines on their broad, hardened, shell-like abdomens. The name ''Gasteracantha'' is derived from the Greek (), meaning "belly, abdomen", and (), meaning "thorn, spine". Spiny-backed orb-weavers are sometimes colloquially called "crab spiders" because of their shape, but they are not closely related to the true crab spiders. Other colloquial names for certain species include thorn spider, star spider, kite spider, or jewel spider. Members of the genus exhibit strong sexual dimorphism. Females are several times larger than males, which lack prominent spines or bright colors. ''Gasteracantha'' species are distributed worldwide in tropical and subtropical climates. The genus is most diverse in tropical Asia, from India t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instar
An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or assume a new form. Differences between instars can often be seen in altered body proportions, colors, patterns, changes in the number of body segments or head width. After shedding their exoskeleton (moulting), the juvenile arthropods continue in their life cycle until they either pupate or moult again. The instar period of growth is fixed; however, in some insects, like the salvinia stem-borer moth, the number of instars depends on early larval nutrition. Some arthropods can continue to moult after sexual maturity, but the stages between these subsequent moults are generally not called instars. For most insect species, an ''instar'' is the developmental stage of the larval forms of holometabolous (complete metamorphism) or nymphal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymenoptera Of Australia
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism (complete metamorphosis)—that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature. Etymology The name Hymenoptera refers to the wings of the insects, but the original derivation is ambiguous. All references agree that the derivation involves the Ancient Greek πτερόν (''pteron'') for wing. The Ancient Greek ὑμήν (''hymen'') for membrane provides a plausible etymology for the term because species in this order have membranous wings. However, a key characteristic of this order is that the hindwings are con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
