The Insects Portal
Insects (from Latin insectum) are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and a pair of antennae. Insects are the most diverse group of animals, with more than a million described species; they represent more than half of all animal species. (Full article...)
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The Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) is also known as the Colorado beetle, the ten-striped spearman, the ten-lined potato beetle, or the potato bug. It is a major pest of potato crops. It is about 10 mm (3⁄8 in) long, with a bright yellow/orange body and five bold brown stripes along the length of each of its elytra. Native to the Rocky Mountains, it spread rapidly in potato crops across America and then Europe from 1859 onwards.
The Colorado potato beetle was first observed in 1811 by Thomas Nuttall and was formally described in 1824 by American entomologist Thomas Say. The beetles were collected in the Rocky Mountains, where they were feeding on the buffalo bur, Solanum rostratum. (Full article...)Did you know -
- ... that the golden-green carpenter bee defends its nesting burrow by blocking the entrance with its abdomen?
- ... that caterpillars of the oak leafroller and oak leaftier moths are major defoliators of oak trees, with leafroller timber losses in Pennsylvania of over $100,000,000 in the early 1970s?
- ... that Nanoraphidia electroburmica, known from a fossil in amber, is the smallest known snakefly species, living or extinct?
- ... that researchers finally collected a larva and an adult female Tonyosynthemis ofarrelli which match an earlier male specimen?
- ... that the common spangle gall on the leaves of pedunculate oak trees is produced by the gall wasp Neurotus quercus-baccarum?
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Abantiades latipennis (Lepidoptera: Hepialidae) is one of fourteen species in the Australian genus Abantiades. It thrives in regrowth forests that were previously clearfelled; the phytophagous larvae of A. latipennis feed primarily on the root systems of two species of tree, Eucalyptus obliqua (messmate stringybark) and Eucalyptus regnans (mountain ash).
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