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External Morphology Of Lepidoptera
The external morphology of Lepidoptera is the morphology (biology), physiological structure of the bodies of insects belonging to the order Lepidoptera, also known as butterfly, butterflies and moths. Lepidoptera are distinguished from other orders by the presence of Scale (Lepidoptera), scales on the external parts of the body and appendages, especially the wings. Butterflies and moths vary in size from microlepidoptera only a few millimetres long, to a wingspan of many inches such as the Atlas moth. Comprising over 160,000 described species, the Lepidoptera possess variations of the basic body structure which has evolved to gain advantages in adaptation and distribution. Lepidopterans undergo metamorphosis, complete metamorphosis, going through a four-stage Biological life cycle, life cycle: egg (biology), egg, larva or caterpillar, pupa or Pupa#Chrysalis, chrysalis, and imago, imago (plural: ''imagines'') / adult. The larvae – caterpillars – have a toughened ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serial Comma
The serial comma (also referred to as the series comma, Oxford comma, or Harvard comma) is a comma placed after the second-to-last term in a list (just before the conjunction) when writing out three or more terms. For example, a list of three countries might be punctuated with the serial comma as "France, Italy, and Spain" or without it as "France, Italy and Spain". The serial comma can help avoid ambiguity in some situations, but can also create it in others. There is no universally accepted standard for its use. The serial comma is popular in formal writing (such as in academic, literary, and legal contexts) but is usually omitted in journalism as a way to save space. Its popularity in informal and semi-formal writing depends on the variety of English; it is usually excluded in British English, while in American English it is common and often considered mandatory outside journalism.''The Oxford Style Manual'', 2002: "The presence or lack of a comma before ''and'' or ''or'' .. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Life Cycle
In biology, a biological life cycle (or just life cycle when the biological context is clear) is a series of stages of the life of an organism, that begins as a zygote, often in an egg, and concludes as an adult that reproduces, producing an offspring in the form of a new zygote which then itself goes through the same series of stages, the process repeating in a cyclic fashion. "The concept is closely related to those of the life history, Developmental biology, development and ontogeny, but differs from them in stressing renewal." Transitions of form may involve growth, asexual reproduction, or sexual reproduction. In some organisms, different "generations" of the species succeed each other during the life cycle. For Embryophyte, plants and many algae, there are two multicellular stages, and the life cycle is referred to as alternation of generations. The term life history is often used, particularly for organisms such as the red algae which have three multicellular stages (or mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detritivore
Detritivores (also known as detrivores, detritophages, detritus feeders or detritus eaters) are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus (decomposing plant and animal parts as well as feces). There are many kinds of invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants that eat detritus or carry out coprophagy. By doing so, all these detritivores contribute to decomposition and the nutrient cycles. Detritivores should be distinguished from other decomposers, such as many species of bacteria, fungi and protists, which are unable to ingest discrete lumps of matter. Instead, these other decomposers live by absorbing and metabolizing on a molecular scale (saprotrophic nutrition). The terms ''detritivore'' and ''decomposer'' are often used interchangeably, but they describe different organisms. Detritivores are usually arthropods and help in the process of remineralization. Detritivores perform the first stage of remineralization, by fragmenting the dead plant matter, allowing decomp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ... whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by eating, consumption of animal tissue (biology), tissues (mainly muscle, adipose tissue, fat and other soft tissues) as food, whether through predation or scavenger, scavenging. Nomenclature Mammal order The technical term for mammals in the order (biology), order Carnivora is ''carnivoran'', and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion. Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat non-vascular autotrophs such as mosses, algae and lichens, but do not include those feeding on decomposed plant matters (i.e. detritivores) or macrofungi (i.e. fungivores). As a result of their plant-based diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouth structures ( jaws or mouthparts) well adapted to mechanically break down plant materials, and their digestive systems have special enzymes (e.g. amylase and cellulase) to digest polysaccharides. Grazing herbivores such as horses and cattles have wide flat- crowned teeth that are better adapted for grinding grass, tree bark and other tougher lignin-containing materials, and many of them evolved rumination or cecotropic behaviors to better extract nutrients from plants. A larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proleg
A proleg is a small, fleshy, stub structure found on the ventral surface of the abdomen of most larval forms of insects of the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, though they can also be found on larvae of insects such as symphyta, sawflies. In all the orders in which they appear, mainly Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera, prolegs of any form evolved independently of each other by convergent evolution. They appear to have evolved from ancient inactive genes that have since been activated again. Prolegs of lepidopteran larvae have a small circle of gripping hooks, called "crochets". The arrangement of the crochets can be helpful in identification to Rank (zoology), family level. Although the point has been debated, prolegs are not widely regarded as true arthropod leg, legs, derived from the primitive Arthropod leg#Biramous and uniramous, uniramous limbs. Certainly in their morphology they are not jointed, and so lack the five segments (coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, tarsus) of thoraci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthropod Leg
The arthropod leg is a form of jointed appendage of arthropods, usually used for walking. Many of the terms used for arthropod leg segments (called podomeres) are of Latin origin, and may be confused with terms for bones: ''coxa'' (meaning hip (anatomy), hip, : ''coxae''), ''trochanter'', ''femur'' (: ''femora''), ''tibia'' (: ''tibiae''), ''tarsus'' (: ''tarsi''), ''ischium'' (: ''ischia''), ''metatarsus'', ''carpus'', ''dactylus'' (meaning finger), ''patella'' (: ''patellae''). Homology (biology), Homologies of leg segments between groups are difficult to prove and are the source of much argument. Some authors posit up to eleven segments per leg for the most recent common ancestor of Neontology, extant arthropods but modern arthropods have eight or fewer. It has been argued that the ancestral leg need not have been so complex, and that other events, such as successive loss of function of a Homeobox, ''Hox''-gene, could result in Parallel evolution, parallel gains of leg segments ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insect Mouthparts
Insects have arthropod mouthparts, mouthparts that may vary greatly across insect species, as they are adapted to particular modes of feeding. The earliest insects had chewing mouthparts. Most specialisation of mouthparts are for piercing and sucking, and this mode of feeding has evolved a number of times independently. For example, mosquitoes (which are true flies) and aphids (which are Hemiptera, true bugs) both pierce and suck, though female mosquitoes feed on animal blood whereas aphids feed on plant fluids. Evolution Like most external features of arthropods, the mouthparts of Hexapoda are highly derived. Insect mouthparts show a multitude of different functional mechanisms across the wide diversity of insect species. It is common for significant Homology (biology), homology to be conserved, with matching structures forming from matching Primordium, primordia, and having the same evolutionary origin. However, even if structures are almost physically and functionally identica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sclerite
A sclerite (Greek language, Greek , ', meaning "hardness, hard") is a hardened body part. In various branches of biology the term is applied to various structures, but not as a rule to vertebrate anatomical features such as bones and teeth. Instead it refers most commonly to the hardened parts of arthropod exoskeletons and the internal wikt:spicule, spicules of invertebrates such as certain sponges and Alcyonacea, soft corals. In paleontology, a scleritome is the complete set of sclerites of an organism, often all that is known from fossil invertebrates. Sclerites in combination Sclerites may occur practically isolated in an organism, such as the Stinger, sting of a Conus, cone shell. Also, they can be more or less scattered, such as tufts of defensive sharp, mineralised bristles as in many marine polychaetes. Or, they can occur as structured, but unconnected or loosely connected arrays, such as the mineral "teeth" in the radula of many Mollusca, the Valve (mollusc), valves of chit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pupa
A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages thereof being egg, larva, pupa, and imago. The processes of entering and completing the pupal stage are controlled by the insect's hormones, especially juvenile hormone, prothoracicotropic hormone, and ecdysone. The act of becoming a pupa is called pupation, and the act of emerging from the pupal case is called eclosion or emergence. The pupae of different groups of insects have different names such as ''chrysalis'' for the pupae of butterflies and ''tumbler'' for those of the mosquito family. Pupae may further be enclosed in other structures such as cocoons, nests, or shells. Position in life cycle The pupal stage follows the larval stage, or in some cases a prepupal stage, and precedes adulthood ('' imago'') in insects with compl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
