Protelean organisms are widely regarded as a special class of parasites, often referred to as
parasitoid
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...
s. Protelean parasites refer to insects that begin the juvenile phase of their lives as
parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...
s and ultimately destroy or consume their host to emerge as free-living adults. Defining attributes of Protelean parasitoids include a parasitic nature that is confined to the larval stage, destruction of a single host, and an independent mature stage. Other distinguishing characteristics include a body size similar to its host and a comparatively simple life style. Parasitoids and their hosts are typically in the same taxonomic class.
Examples
The most typical examples of such organisms are the parasitoidal
Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera is a large order (biology), order of insects, comprising the sawfly, 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 Par ...
,
Diptera
Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...
,
Strepsiptera
The Strepsiptera are an order of insects with eleven extant families that include about 600 described species. They are endoparasites in other insects, such as bees, wasps, leafhoppers, silverfish, and cockroaches. Females of most species never ...
, and some other insects, as well as the copepod
Monstrilloida
Monstrilloida is an order of copepods with a cosmopolitan distribution in the world's oceans. The order contains a single family, Monstrillidae. The name of the first ever described genus ''Monstrilla'' is derived from latin, meaning "tiny monst ...
.
Usually such insects are
holometabolous
Holometabolism, also called complete metamorphosis, is a form of insect development which includes four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and imago (or adult). Holometabolism is a synapomorphic trait of all insects in the superorder Endopterygot ...
, which
preadapts them for such a
life history because it implies that their larval stage of life is distinct from the adult stage.
There are however many other ranges of protelean organisms, such as early
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 ass ...
s of certain species of mites that attack other
Arthropoda
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...
. ''Allothrombium pulvinium'', more commonly referred to as the velvet mite, is an example of a protelean parasite that infects aphids in its larval stage. The larvae are ectoparasitic, while the deutonymphs and mature mites are independent, with the mature adults ultimately becoming predators of aphids.
References
External links
Parasitengona
Parasitism
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