Boxes

1.1. Collected to extinction?

The large blue butterfly (Maculinea arion) was reported to be in serious decline in southern England in the late 19th century, a phenomenon ascribed ...

1.2. Tramp ants and biodiversity

No ants are native to Hawai’i yet there are more than 40 species on the island — all have been brought from elsewhere within the last century.

1.3. Sustainable use of mopane worms

An important economic insect in Africa is the larva (caterpillar) of emperor moths, especially Imbrasia belina (see Plates 1.4 & 1.5, facing here) ...

3.1. Molecular genetic techniques and their application to neuropeptide research

Molecular biology is essentially a set of techniques for the isolation, analysis, and manipulation of DNA and its RNA and protein products. Molecular genetics ...

3.2. Tracheal hypertrophy in mealworms at low oxygen concentrations

Resistance to diffusion of gases in insect tracheal systems arises from the spiracular valves when they are partially or fully closed, the tracheae, and the ...

3.3. The filter chamber of Hemiptera

Most Hemiptera have an unusual arrangement of the midgut which is related to their habit of feeding on plant fluids. An anterior and ...

3.4. Cryptonephric systems

Many larval and adult Coleoptera, larval Lepidoptera, and some larval Symphyta have a modified arrangement of the excretory system that is concerned either with ...

4.1. Aural location of host by a parasitoid fly

Parasitoid insects track down hosts, upon which their immature development depends, using predominantly chemical and visual cues (section 13.1). Locating a host from afar ...

4.2. The electroantennogram

Electrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological material, such as all types of nerve cells, including the peripheral sensory ...

4.3. Reception of communication molecules

Pheromones, and indeed all signaling chemicals (semiochemicals), must be detectable in the smallest quantities. For example, the moth approaching a pheromone source ...

4.4. Biological clocks

Seasonal changes in environmental conditions allow insects to adjust their life histories to optimize the use of suitable conditions and minimize the impact ...

5.1. Courtship and mating in Mecoptera

Sexual behavior has been well studied in hangingflies (Bittacidae) of the North American Hylobittacus (Bittacus) apicalis and Bittacus species and the Australian ...

5.2. Nuptial feeding and other “gifts”

Feeding of the female by the male before, during, or after copulation has evolved independently in several different insect groups. From the female’s ...

5.3. Sperm precedence

The penis or aedeagus of a male insect may be modified to facilitate placement of his own sperm in a strategic position within the ...

5.4. Control of mating and oviposition in a blow fly

The sheep blow fly, Lucilia cuprina (Diptera: Calliphoridae), costs the Australian sheep industry many millions of dollars annually through losses caused by myiases ...

5.5. Egg-tending fathers — the giant water bugs

Care of eggs by adult insects is common in those that show sociality (Chapter 12), but tending solely by male insects is very unusual. This ...

6.1. Molecular insights into insect development

The formation of segments in the early embryo of Drosophila is understood better than almost any other complex developmental process. Segmentation ...

6.2. Calculation of day-degrees

An outline of a simple method to estimate day-degrees (after Daly et al. 1978) is exemplified by data on the relationship between ...

6.3. Climatic modeling for fruit flies

The Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni, is a pest of most commercial fruits. The females oviposit into the fruit and larval feeding followed by rotting ...

7.1. Relationships of the Hexapoda to other Arthropoda

The immense phylum Arthropoda, the joint-legged animals, includes several major lineages: the myriapods (centipedes, millipedes, and their relatives), the chelicerates (horseshoe ...

9.1. Ground pearls

In parts of Africa, the encysted nymphs (“ground pearls”) of certain subterranean scale insects are sometimes made into necklaces by the local people. These ...

9.2. Non-insect hexapods (Collembola, Protura, and Diplura)

The Collembola, Protura, and Diplura have been united as the “Entognatha”, based on a similar mouthpart morphology in which mandibles and maxillae are ...

9.3. Archaeognatha (bristletails) and Zygentoma (Thysanura; silverfish)

The Archaeognatha and Zygentoma represent the surviving remnants of a wider radiation of primitively flightless insects. These two apterygote orders superficially ...

9.4. Grylloblattodea (Grylloblattaria, Notoptera; grylloblattids, ice or rock crawlers)

Grylloblattodea comprise a single family, Grylloblattidae, containing some 25 described species, restricted to western North America and central to eastern Asia ...

9.5. Embiidina or Embioptera (embiids, webspinners)

There are some 300 described species of embiids (perhaps up to an order of magnitude more remain undescribed) in at least eight families, ...

9.6. Zoraptera

These insects comprise the single genus Zorotypus, sometimes subdivided into several genera, containing just over 30 described species found worldwide in tropical and ...

9.7. Dermaptera (earwigs)

The earwigs comprise an order containing some 2000 species in about 10 families found worldwide. They are hemimetabolous, with small to moderately sized (4–25 ...

9.8. Blattodea (Blattaria; cockroaches, roaches)

The cockroaches make up an order of over 3500 species in at least eight families worldwide. They are hemimetabolous, with small to large ...

10.1. Ephemeroptera (mayflies)

The mayflies constitute a small order of some 3000 described species, with highest diversity in temperate areas. Adults have reduced mouthparts and large compound ...

10.2. Odonata (damselflies and dragonflies)

These conspicuous insects comprise a small, largely tropical order containing about 5500 described species, with about one-half belonging to the suborder Zygoptera ...

10.3. Plecoptera (stoneflies)

The stoneflies constitute a minor and often cryptic order of 16 families, with more than 2000 species worldwide, predominantly in temperate and cool areas. They ...

10.4. Trichoptera (caddisflies)

Caddisflies comprise an order of over 11,000 described species and more than 40 families found worldwide. They are holometabolous, with a moth-like adult ...

10.5. Diptera (true flies)

Amongst the Diptera, aquatic larvae are typical of many Nematocera, with over 10,000 aquatic species in several families, including the speciose Chironomidae (non-biting ...

10.6. Other aquatic orders

Hemiptera (bugs) Amongst these hemimetabolous insects, there are about 4000 aquatic and semi-aquatic (including marine) species in about 20 families worldwide, belonging ...

11.1. Induced defenses

Plants contain various chemicals that may deter, or at least reduce their suitability to, some herbivores. These are the secondary plant compounds (noxious ...

11.2. The grape phylloxera

An example of the complexity of a galling life cycle, host-plant resistance, and even naming of an insect is provided by the grape ...

11.3. Salvinia and phytophagous weevils

The floating aquatic fern salvinia (Salviniaceae: Salvinia molesta) (illustrated here, after Sainty & Jacobs 1981) has spread by human agency since 1939 to many ...

11.4. Figs and fig wasps

Figs belong to the large, mostly tropical genus Ficus (Moraceae) of about 900 species. Each species of fig (except for the self-fertilizing cultivated edible ...

11.5. Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts, katydids, and crickets)

The Orthoptera is a worldwide order of more than 20,000 species in some 13 to 30 families (the classification is unstable), comprising two ...

11.6. Phasmatodea (phasmatids, phasmids, stick-insects or walking sticks)

The Phasmatodea is a worldwide, predominantly tropical order of more than 3000 species that is lacking a phylogenetically based classification. They have ...

11.7. Thysanoptera (thrips)

The Thysanoptera is a worldwide order of minute to small insects (from 0.5 mm to a maximum length of 15 mm), comprising about 5000 ...

11.8. Hemiptera (bugs, cicadas, leafhoppers, spittle bugs, planthoppers, aphids, jumping plant lice, scale insects, whiteflies)

The Hemiptera is distributed worldwide, and is the most diverse of the non-endopterygote orders, with more than 90,000 species in about 140 families.

11.9. Psocoptera (booklice, barklice, or psocids)

The Psocoptera is a worldwide order of common but cryptic minute to small insects (1–10 mm long), with over 3000 species in 36 families. Development ...

11.10. Coleoptera (beetles)

The Coleoptera is probably the largest order of insects, with some 350,000 described species in four suborders (Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, and the speciose ...

11.11. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)

The Lepidoptera is one of the major insect orders, both in terms of size, with some 160,000 described species in more than 120 families, and ...

12.1. The dance language of bees

Honey bees have impressive communication abilities. Their ability to communicate forage sites to their nest- mates first was recognized when a marked worker provided ...

12.2. Hymenoptera (bees, ants, wasps, sawflies, and wood wasps)

The Hymenoptera is an order of about 100,000 described species of holometabolous neopterans, classified traditionally in two suborders, the “Symphyta” ...

12.3. Isoptera (termites)

The Isoptera is a small order of some 2600 described species of hemimetabolous neopterans, living socially with polymorphic caste systems of reproductives, ...

13.1. Viruses, wasp parasitoids, and host immunity

In certain endoparasitoid wasps in the families Ichneumonidae and Braconidae, the ovipositing female wasp injects the larval host not only with her egg(s), but also with ...

13.2. Mantodea (mantids)

The Mantodea is an order of about 2000 species of moderate to large (1–15 cm long) hemimetabolous predators classified in eight families. Males are ...

13.3. Mantophasmatodea (heel walkers)

The discovery of a previously unrecognized order of insects is an unusual event. In the 20th century only two orders were newly described: Zoraptera ...

13.4. Neuropterida, or neuropteroid orders

Members of these three small neuropteroid orders have holometabolous development, and are mostly predators. Approximate numbers of described species are: 5000–6000 for ...

13.5. Mecoptera (scorpionflies, hangingflies)

The Mecoptera is an order of about 550 known species in nine families, with common names associated with the two largest families — Bittacidae ...

13.6. Strepsiptera

The Strepsiptera is an order of 500–550 species of highly modified endoparasites with extreme sexual dimorphism. The male (top right figure, after CSIRO 1970) ...

14.1. Avian predators as selective agents for insects

Henry Bates, who was first to propose a theory for mimicry, suggested that natural enemies such as birds selected among different prey such as butterflies, ...

14.2. Backpack bugs — dressed to kill?

Certain West African predatory assassin bugs (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) decorate themselves with a coat of dust which they adhere to their bodies with sticky secretions ...

14.3. Chemically protected eggs

Some insect eggs can be protected by parental provisioning of defensive chemicals, as seen in certain arctiid moths and some butterflies. Pyrrolizidine ...

14.4. Insect binary chemical weapons

The common name of bombardier beetles (Carabidae: including genus Brachinus) derives from observations of early naturalists that the beetles released volatile defensive ...

15.1. Life cycle of Plasmodium

The malarial cycle, shown here modified after Kettle (1984) and Katz et al. (1989), commences with an infected female Anopheles mosquito taking a blood meal from ...

15.2. Anopheles gambiae complex

In the early days of African malariology, the common, predominantly pool-breeding Anopheles gambiae was found to be a highly anthropophilic, very efficient ...

15.3. Phthiraptera (lice)

The Phthiraptera is an order of some 5000 species of highly modified, apterous, dorsoventrally flattened ectoparasites, as typified by Werneckiella ...

15.4. Siphonaptera (fleas)

The Siphonaptera is an order of some 2500 species, all of which are highly modified, apterous, and laterally compressed ectoparasites. Development ...

15.5. Diptera (flies)

The Diptera is an order containing perhaps some 125,000 described species, in roughly 130 families, with several thousands of species of medical ...

16.1. Bemisia tabaci biotype B: a new pest or an old one transformed?

Bemisia tabaci, often called the tobacco or sweetpotato whitefly, is a polyphagous and predominantly tropical—subtropical whitefly (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) that ...

16.2. The cottony-cushion scale

An example of a spectacularly successful classical biological control system is the control of infestations of the cottony-cushion scale, Icerya ...

16.3. Neem

The neem tree, Azadirachta indica (family Meliaceae), is native to tropical Asia but has been planted widely in the warmer parts of Africa, Central and South ...

16.4. Taxonomy and biological control of the cassava mealybug

Cassava (manioc, or tapioca — Manihot esculenta) is a staple food crop for 200 million Africans. In 1973 a new mealybug (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) ...

16.5. The Colorado potato beetle

Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), commonly known as the Colorado potato beetle, is a striking beetle (illustrated here, after Stanek 1969) that ...