''Kermes vermilio'' is a species of ''
Kermes'' so which feeds on trees. Some of the species are used by humans to make
vermilion
Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...
; though an at-similar-time-of-discovery mineral form in many cultures is cinnabar (HgS, Mercury Sulphide, crystallized). For details of further chemical alternatives see vermilion.
Sister species
The word (and dye)
crimson
Crimson is a rich, deep red color, inclining to purple.
It originally meant the color of the kermes dye produced from a scale insect, '' Kermes vermilio'', but the name is now sometimes also used as a generic term for slightly bluish-red co ...
is a corruption-derivative of
kermes – the organism's genus, chiefly referring to its other species.
Naturenet article with images and description of ''Kermes vermilio'' and its foodplant
/ref>
See also
*Cochineal
The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America through North America ...
*Armenian cochineal
The Armenian cochineal (''Porphyrophora hamelii''), also known as the Ararat cochineal or Ararat scale, is a scale insect indigenous to the Ararat plain and Aras (Araks) River valley in the Armenian Highlands and in Turkey. It was formerly us ...
(''kirmiz'')
*Vermilion
Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...
References
Insects described in 1864
Animal dyes
Kermesidae
{{Coccoidea-stub