The evolutionary ancestry of arthropods dates back to the Cambrian period. The group is generally regarded as monophyletic, and many analyses support the placement of arthropods with cycloneuralians (or their constituent clades) in a superphylum Ecdysozoa. Overall, however, the basal relationships of animals are not yet well resolved. Likewise, the relationships between various arthropod groups are still actively debated. Today, arthropods contribute to the human food supply both directly as food, and more importantly, indirectly as pollinators of crops. Some species are known to spread severe disease to humans, livestock, and crops. (Full article...)
Its prosoma (head) could be subquadrate (almost square) or subrectangular (almost rectangular), with reniform (kidney-shaped) eyes. The appendages (limbs) were generally long, narrow and pointed at their tip. The abdomen and telson (the posteriormost division of the body) had different shapes and sizes depending on the species. The ornamentation of the body consisted of small, pointed scales. The largest species of the genus was O. kokomoensis with a total length of 16 centimetres (6.3 inches) long, followed by O. augusti (14.3 cm, 5.6 in) and O. pumilus (4 cm, 1.6 in).
The first Onychopterella fossils, belonging to O. kokomoensis, were discovered in 1896 at the Waterlime Group of Kokomo, Indiana. The species has received attention from eurypterid researchers for its terminal claw in the sixth pair of appendages or swimming legs. Onychopterella is also the type genus of the basal ("primitive") family of eurypterinesOnychopterellidae together with Alkenopterus and Tylopterella, characterized by the presence of spines in the second to fourth pair of appendages and a lack of them in the fifth and sixth (except occasionally one on the distal end of the swimming leg), as well as the lanceolate (lance-shaped) or styliform (pen-shaped) form of the telson and other characteristics. (Full article...)
Portia labiata is a jumping spider (family Salticidae) found in Sri Lanka, India, southern China, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Singapore, Java, Sumatra and the Philippines. In this medium-sized jumping spider, the front part is orange-brown and the back part is brownish. The conspicuous main eyes provide vision more acute than a cat's during the day and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly's, and this is essential in P. labiata′s navigation, hunting and mating.
The genusPortia has been called "eight-legged cats", as their hunting tactics are as versatile and adaptable as a lion's. All members of Portia have instinctive hunting tactics for their most common prey, but often can improvise by trial and error against unfamiliar prey or in unfamiliar situations, and then remember the new approach. While most jumping spiders prey mainly on insects and by active hunting, females of Portia also build webs to catch prey directly and sometimes join their own webs on to those of web-based spiders. Both females and males prefer web spiders as prey, followed by other jumping spiders, and finally insects. In all cases females are more effective predators than males.
Populations from Los Baños and from Sagada, both in the Philippines, have slightly different hunting tactics. In laboratory tests, Los Baños P. labiata relies more on trial and error than Sagada P. labiata in finding ways to vibrate the prey's web and thus lure or distract the prey. Around Los Baños the web-building Scytodes pallida, which preys on jumping spiders, is very abundant, and spits a sticky gum on prey and potential threats. A P. labiata from Los Baños instinctively detours round the back of S. pallida while with plucking the web in a way that makes the prey believe the threat is in front of it. In areas where S. pallida is absent, the local members of P. labiata do not use this combination of deception and detouring for a stab in the back. In a test to explore P. labiata′s ability to solve a novel problem, a miniature lagoon was set up, and the spiders had to find the best way to cross it. Specimens from Sagada, in the mountains, almost always repeated the first option they tried, even when that was unsuccessful. When specimens from Los Baños, beside a lake, were unsuccessful the first time, about three quarters switched to another option. (Full article...)
Unionopterus was described in 1948 after the discovery of its only known specimen in the Karaganda Formation of Kazakhstan (at that time part of the Soviet Union). This was one of the first discoveries of eurypterids in the Soviet Union and Carboniferous eurypterids in general. It was probably a swimming organism as well as other eurypterids, although not as good as its relatives.
There are numerous factors that have made Unionopterus a problematic genus for eurypterid researchers. It has been placed in the familyAdelophthalmidae and it has even been speculated that a species of Adelophthalmus, A. dumonti, actually belongs to Unionopterus, but this cannot be confirmed. Many authors have chosen to completely ignore the genus during phylogenetic studies, making Unionopterus an enigmatic eurypterid. (Full article...)
Mecoptera (from the Greek: mecos = "long", ptera = "wings") is an order of insects in the superorder Holometabola with about six hundred species in nine families worldwide. Mecopterans are sometimes called scorpionflies after their largest family, Panorpidae, in which the males have enlarged genitals raised over the body that look similar to the stingers of scorpions, and long beaklike rostra. The Bittacidae, or hangingflies, are another prominent family and are known for their elaborate mating rituals, in which females choose mates based on the quality of gift prey offered to them by the males. A smaller group is the snow scorpionflies, family Boreidae, adults of which are sometimes seen walking on snowfields. In contrast, the majority of species in the order inhabit moist environments in tropical locations.
The Mecoptera are closely related to the Siphonaptera (fleas), and a little more distantly to the Diptera (true flies). They are somewhat fly-like in appearance, being small to medium-sized insects with long slender bodies and narrow membranous wings. Most breed in moist environments such as leaf litter or moss, and the eggs may not hatch until the wet season arrives. The larvae are caterpillar-like and mostly feed on vegetable matter, and the non-feeding pupae may pass through a diapause until weather conditions are favorable.
Early Mecoptera may have played an important role in pollinating extinct species of gymnosperms before the evolution of other insect pollinators such as bees. Adults of modern species are overwhelmingly predators or consumers of dead organisms. In a few areas, some species are the first insects to arrive at a cadaver, making them useful in forensic entomology. (Full article...)
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Diptera from different families: Housefly (Muscidae) (top left)
Flies are insects of the orderDiptera, 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 mechanosensory organs known as halteres, which act as high-speed sensors of rotational movement and allow dipterans to perform advanced aerobatics. Diptera is a large order containing an estimated 1,000,000 species including horse-flies, crane flies, hoverflies, mosquitoes and others, although only about 125,000 species have been described.
Flies have a mobile head, with a pair of large compound eyes, and mouthparts designed for piercing and sucking (mosquitoes, black flies and robber flies), or for lapping and sucking in the other groups. Their wing arrangement gives them great maneuverability in flight, and claws and pads on their feet enable them to cling to smooth surfaces. Flies undergo complete metamorphosis; the eggs are often laid on the larval food-source and the larvae, which lack true limbs, develop in a protected environment, often inside their food source. Other species like Metopia argyrocephala are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or open wounds of mammals. The pupa is a tough capsule from which the adult emerges when ready to do so; flies mostly have short lives as adults.
Diptera is one of the major insect orders and of considerable ecological and human importance. Flies are important pollinators, second only to the bees and their Hymenopteran relatives. Flies may have been among the evolutionarily earliest pollinators responsible for early plant pollination. Fruit flies are used as model organisms in research, but less benignly, mosquitoes are vectors for malaria, dengue, West Nile fever, yellow fever, encephalitis, and other infectious diseases; and houseflies, commensal with humans all over the world, spread foodborne illnesses. Flies can be annoyances especially in some parts of the world where they can occur in large numbers, buzzing and settling on the skin or eyes to bite or seek fluids. Larger flies such as tsetse flies and screwworms cause significant economic harm to cattle. Blowfly larvae, known as gentles, and other dipteran larvae, known more generally as maggots, are used as fishing bait and as food for carnivorous animals. They are also used in medicine in debridementto clean wounds. (Full article...)
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Helicoverpa zea, commonly known as the corn earworm, is a species (formerly in the genus Heliothis) in the family Noctuidae. The larva of the mothHelicoverpa zea is a major agricultural pest. Since it is polyphagous (feeds on many different plants) during the larval stage, the species has been given many different common names, including the cotton bollworm and the tomato fruitworm. It also consumes a wide variety of other crops.
The species is widely distributed across the Americas with the exception of northern Canada and Alaska. It has become resistant to many pesticides, but can be controlled with integrated pest management techniques including deep ploughing, trap crops, chemical control using mineral oil, and biological controls.
The species migrates seasonally, at night, and can be carried downwind up to 400 km. Pupae can make use of diapause to wait out adverse environmental conditions, especially at high latitudes and in drought. (Full article...)
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Calliphora vomitoria, known as the blue bottle fly, orange-bearded blue bottle, or bottlebee, is a species of blow fly, a species in the family Calliphoridae. Calliphora vomitoria is the type species of the genusCalliphora. It is common throughout many continents including Europe, Americas, and Africa. They are fairly large flies, nearly twice the size of the housefly, with a metallic blue abdomen and long orange setae on the gena.
While adult flies feed on nectar, females deposit their eggs on rotting corpses, making them important forensic insects, as their eggs and timing of oviposition can be used to estimate time of death. (Full article...)
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Black-headed sugar ant worker from Strangways, Victoria
The black-headed sugar ant (Camponotus nigriceps), also known as the brown sugar ant, is a species of Formicinaeant endemic to Australia. Found throughout most states, the species is a member of the genus Camponotus, a cosmopolitan genus of ants commonly known as carpenter ants. It was formally described and named by British entomologist Frederick Smith in 1858. These ants are characterised by their black head, reddish-brown mesosoma and black gaster, which can change in colour.
The species is polymorphic: workers and soldiers measure 6 to 12 millimetres (0.24 to 0.47 in) and males are 12 millimetres (0.47 in). The queens are the largest members of the colony, measuring 16 millimetres (0.63 in). Colonies dwell in dry regions, including open areas or in dry sclerophyll woodland, where they nest in soil, large mounds or under stones. Nuptial flight occurs in summer and nests can hold several thousand individuals. Considered a household pest, black-headed sugar ants feed on sweet foods and insects and tend to butterfly larvae. Numerous birds and fish prey on these ants. (Full article...)
The Lampyridae are a family of elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms for their conspicuous production of light, mainly during twilight, to attract mates. Light production in the Lampyridae is thought to have originated as an honestwarning signal that the larvae were distasteful; this was co-opted as a mating signal in the adults. In a further development, female fireflies of the genus Photuris mimic the flash pattern of Photinus species to trap their males as prey.
Fireflies are found in temperate and tropical climates. Many live in marshes or in wet, wooded areas where their larvae have abundant sources of food. While all known fireflies glow as larvae, only some species produce light in their adult stage, and the location of the light organ varies among species and between sexes of the same species. Fireflies have attracted human attention since classical antiquity; their presence has been taken to signify a wide variety of conditions in different cultures and is especially appreciated aesthetically in Japan, where parks are set aside for this specific purpose. (Full article...)
Haemolymph is the analogue of blood for most arthropods. An arthropod has an open circulatory system, with a body cavity called a haemocoel through which haemolymph circulates to the interior organs. Like their exteriors, the internal organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. Their nervous system is "ladder-like", with paired ventralnerve cords running through all segments and forming paired ganglia in each segment. Their heads are formed by fusion of varying numbers of segments, and their brains are formed by fusion of the ganglia of these segments and encircle the esophagus. The respiratory and excretory systems of arthropods vary, depending as much on their environment as on the subphylum to which they belong.
Arthropods use combinations of compound eyes and pigment-pitocelli for vision. In most species, the ocelli can only detect the direction from which light is coming, and the compound eyes are the main source of information, but the main eyes of spiders are ocelli that can form images and, in a few cases, can swivel to track prey. Arthropods also have a wide range of chemical and mechanical sensors, mostly based on modifications of the many bristles known as setae that project through their cuticles. Similarly, their reproduction and development are varied; all terrestrial species use internal fertilization, but this is sometimes by indirect transfer of the sperm via an appendage or the ground, rather than by direct injection. Aquatic species use either internal or external fertilization. Almost all arthropods lay eggs, with many species giving birth to live young after the eggs have hatched inside the mother; but a few are genuinely viviparous, such as aphids. Arthropod hatchlings vary from miniature adults to grubs and caterpillars that lack jointed limbs and eventually undergo a total metamorphosis to produce the adult form. The level of maternal care for hatchlings varies from nonexistent to the prolonged care provided by social insects. (Full article...)
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Female P. fimbriata
Portia fimbriata, sometimes called the fringed jumping spider, is a jumping spider (family Salticidae) found in Australia and Southeast Asia. Adult females have bodies 6.8 to 10.5 millimetres long, while those of adult males are 5.2 to 6.5 millimetres long. Both sexes have a generally dark brown carapace, reddish brown chelicerae ("fangs"), a brown underside, dark brown palps with white hairs, and dark brown abdomens with white spots on the upper side. Both sexes have fine, faint markings and soft fringes of hair, and the legs are spindly and fringed. However, specimens from New Guinea and Indonesia have orange-brown carapaces and yellowish abdomens. In all species of the genusPortia, the abdomen distends when the spider is well fed or producing eggs.
The hunting tactics of Portia are versatile and adaptable. All members of Portia have instinctive hunting tactics for their most common prey, but can improvise by trial and error against unfamiliar prey or in unfamiliar situations, and then remember the new approach. There are differences in the hunting tactics of the regional populations of P. fimbriata. Those in Australia's Northern Territory are poor at hunting jumping spiders and better against non-salticid web-building spiders and against insects. The Sri Lanka variant is fair against other jumping spiders, and good against web spiders and insects. P. fimbriata in Queensland is an outstanding predator of other jumping spiders and of web spiders, but poor against insects. The Queensland variant use a unique "cryptic stalking" technique which prevents most jumping spider prey from identifying this P. fimbriata as a predator, or even as an animal at all. Some jumping spider prey have partial defences against the cryptic stalking technique. All types of prey spiders occasionally counter-attack, but all Portia species have very good defences, starting with especially tough skin.
When meeting another of the same species, P. fimbriata does not use cryptic stalking but displays by moving quickly and smoothly. In P. fimbriata from Queensland, contests between males usually are very brief and do no damage. Contests between Portia females are usually long and violent, and the victor may evict a loser and then eat the loser's eggs – but victorious females of P. fimbriata from Queensland do not kill and eat the losing female. If a P. fimbriata male from Queensland displays to a female, she may run away or she may charge at him.[c] If the pair reach agreement after this, they will copulate if she is mature, and if she is sub-adult he will cohabit in her nest until she finishes moulting, and then they copulate. P. fimbriata typically copulates much quicker than other jumping spiders. Unlike in other Portia species, females of P. fimbriata do not eat their mates during courting, nor during or after copulation. (Full article...)
H. socialis is the type species of Hughmilleriidae, a eurypterid family classified in the superfamily Pterygotioidea that is differentiated by their streamlined bodies, the enlargement of their medium-sized chelicerae and the presence of paired spines on the walking appendages. With the biggest specimen measuring 20 centimetres (8 inches) in length, Hughmilleria is considered a eurypterid of small size. (Full article...)
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Ant mimicry or myrmecomorphy is mimicry of ants by other organisms; it has evolved over 70 times. Ants are abundant all over the world, and potential predators that rely on vision to identify their prey, such as birds and wasps, normally avoid them, because they are either unpalatable or aggressive. Some arthropods mimic ants to escape predation (Batesian mimicry), while some predators of ants, especially spiders, mimic them anatomically and behaviourally in aggressive mimicry. Ant mimicry has existed almost as long as ants themselves; the earliest ant mimics in the fossil record appear in the mid-Cretaceous alongside the earliest ants.
In myrmecophily, mimic and model live commensally together; in the case of ants, the mimic is an inquiline in the ants' nest. Such mimics may in addition be Batesian or aggressive mimics. To overcome ants' powerful defences, mimics may imitate ants chemically with ant-like pheromones, visually, or by imitating an ant's surface microstructure to defeat the ants' tactile inspections. (Full article...)
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Myrmecia regularis is a species of ant endemic to Australia. A member of the genus Myrmecia in the subfamily Myrmeciinae, it was first described by American entomologist Walter Cecil Crawley in 1925. These ants are medium to large in size, measuring 10 to 20 millimetres (0.4 to 0.8 in), and they are bright brownish-red in colour. Queens and workers share similar morphological features, but they can be distinguished by the noticeable size difference. Males also look similar, but collected specimens are too damaged to be examined properly.
Myrmecia regularis is found in the south-western coastal regions, inhabiting eucalypt woodland and open forests. They nest underground and do not build mounds. Workers are active during the day and night, foraging on trees in search for prey and sweet substances such as sap and nectar. The larvae are strictly carnivorous and only eat insects that workers capture. Nuptial flight occurs around February to April, with queens shedding their wings inside the nest and mating near to their parent nest. Queens tend to look for food for their young before they hatch, taking as long as eight months to develop. Certain frog species are known to dwell inside M. regularis colonies. (Full article...)
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Dryomyza anilis
Dryomyza anilis is a common fly from the familyDryomyzidae. The fly is found through various areas in the Northern hemisphere and has brown and orange coloration with distinctive large red eyes. The life span of the fly is not known, but laboratory-reared males can live 28–178 days. D. anilis has recently been placed back in the genus Dryomyza, of which it is the type species. Dryomyzidae were previously part of Sciomyzidae but are now considered a separate family with two subfamilies.
Male D. anilis engage in territorial behavior, guarding carcasses to attract potential mates. Males also guard females, and conflicts over females are frequent. Females typically mate with multiple males. Mating occurs through several rounds of copulation and egg-laying. During mating, males engage in a series of "tapping" rituals where they use their claspers to tap the female's genitals, increasing the chance of them fertilizing the female's eggs. Females lay several batches of eggs on carcasses, fungi, and excrement as well as other substrates. (Full article...)
The following are images from various arthropod-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1 This fully-grown robber crab has tough fabric forming its joints, delicate biomineralized cuticle over its sensory antennae, optic-quality over its eyes, and strong, calcite-reinforced chitin armouring its body and legs; its pincers can break into coconuts (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 5 Honeybee larvae have flexible but delicate unsclerotised cuticles. (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 6This Zoea-stage larva is hardly recognisable as a crab, but each time it sheds its cuticle it remodels itself, eventually taking on its final crab form (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 14Some of the various hypotheses of myriapod phylogeny. Morphological studies (trees a and b) support a sister grouping of Diplopoda and Pauropoda, while studies of DNA or amino acid similarities suggest a variety of different relationships, including the relationship of Pauropoda and Symphyla in tree c. (from Myriapoda)
Image 16Ghost crab, showing a variety of integument types in its exoskeleton, with transparent biomineralization over the eyes, strong biomineralization over the pincers, and tough chitin fabric in the joints and the bristles on the legs (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 20In honeypot antrepletes, the abdomens of the workers that hold the sugar solution grow vastly, but only the unsclerotised cuticle can stretch, leaving the unstretched sclerites as dark islands on the clear abdomen (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 24The house centipedeScutigera coleoptrata has rigid sclerites on each body segment. Supple chitin holds the sclerites together and connects the segments flexibly. Similar chitin connects the joints in the legs. Sclerotised tubular leg segments house the leg muscles, their nerves and attachments, leaving room for the passage of blood to and from the hemocoel (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 25The fangs in spiders' chelicerae are so sclerotised as to be greatly hardened and darkened (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 31Crab larva barely recognisable as a crab, radically changes its form when it undergoes ecdysis as it matures (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 32Mature queen of a termite colony, showing how the unsclerotised cuticle stretches between the dark sclerites that failed to stretch as the abdomen grew to accommodate her ovaries (from Arthropod exoskeleton)
Image 33Formation of anterior segments across arthropod taxa based on gene expression and neuroanatomical observations, Note the chelicera(Ch) and chelifore(Chf) arose from somite 1 and thus correspond to the first antenna(An/An1) of other arthropods. (from Chelicerata)
Poli's stellate barnacle (Chthamalus stellatus) is a species of acorn barnacle common on rocky shores in South West England, Ireland, and Southern Europe. It is named after Italian scientist Giuseppe Saverio Poli. Depending upon environmental conditions and the amount of food available, it can reach up to 14 mm (0.55 in) in diameter.
Zonocerus variegatus, the variegated grasshopper, is a species of grasshopper in the family Pyrgomorphidae native to tropical western and central Africa. It feeds on a wide variety of plant foods and causes damage to crops, particularly cassava, groundnuts and vegetables, as well as transmitting diseases caused by mosaic viruses between plants. This Z. variegatus grasshopper was photographed in the Bobiri Forest in Ghana.
A honey bee extracts nectar from a flower using its proboscis. Tiny hairs covering the bee's body maintain a slight electrostatic charge, causing pollen from the flower's anthers to stick to the bee's hairs, allowing for pollination when the bee moves on to another flower.
The light blue soldier crab (Mictyris longicarpus) inhabits beaches in the Indo-Pacific region. Soldier crabs filter sand or mud for microorganisms. They congregate during the low tide, and bury themselves in a corkscrew pattern during high tide, or whenever they are threatened.
The orb-weaver spiders (family Araneidae) are the familiar builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields and forests. The family is a large one, including over 2800 species in over 160 genera worldwide, making it the third largest known (behind Salticidae and Linyphiidae). The web has always been thought of as an engineering marvel.
A nest of the tropical Asian giant honey bee, which consists of a single exposed honeycomb, an array of densely packed hexagonal cells made of beeswax. Honeycombs store food (honey and pollen) and house the "brood" (eggs, larvae, and pupae).
The yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) is a species of mosquito known for its ability to spread yellow fever and dengue fever. The mosquito can be recognized by the white markings on its legs and a marking in the form of a lyre on its thorax. Though originally from Africa, the yellow fever mosquito can now be found in tropical regions around the world.
The head of a female Clynotis severus species of jumping spider. The eyes of a spider are called simple eyes (as opposed to compound eyes) because in each eye, a single lens collects and focuses light onto the retina. In this spider, the two largest eyes in the middle are the most acute. The remainder on the sides and on the top of its head are "secondary eyes".
The red rock crab (Grapsus grapsus), also known as "Sally Lightfoot", is one of the commonest crabs along the western seaboard of the Americas. John Steinbeck wrote of them, "Everyone who has seen them has been delighted with them ... These little crabs, with brilliant cloisonné carapaces, walk on their tiptoes, they have remarkable eyes and an extremely fast reaction time." He tried to catch them but to little avail. "If you walk slowly, they move slowly ahead of you in droves. If you hurry, they hurry. When you plunge at them, they seem to disappear in a puff of blue smoke."
The rose chafer (Cetonia aurata) is a reasonably large beetle (20 mm/¾ in long) that has metallic green coloration with a distinct V shaped scutellum, the small triangular area between the wing cases just below the thorax. Rose chafers are found over southern and central Europe and the southern part of the UK.
The Ozyptila praticola species of crab spider is found throughout Europe and the Middle East. They do not build webs to trap prey, but are active hunters. Crab spiders are so named because of their first two pairs of legs, which are held out to the side giving them a crab-like appearance. Also, like crabs, these spiders move sideways and backwards more easily than forwards.
Xylotrupes socrates (Siamese rhinoceros beetle, or "fighting beetle"), male, on a banana leaf. This scarab beetle is particularly known for its role in insect fighting in Northern Laos and Thailand.
Two Melangyna viridiceps (called Common Hoverflies in Australia) mating in mid-air. The male, which can be identified by the eyes meeting at the top of its head, is on top. The term "hoverfly" refers to about 6,000 species of flying insects in the family Syrphidae. They are often seen hovering at flowers and are important pollinators.
Argiope trifasciata, the banded garden or banded orb-weaving spider, is a species of arachnid in the family Araneidae. It is native to North and South America but has spread to other parts of the world. This ventral view of a female A. trifasciata shows her in the centre of her web, which can reach a diameter of 60 cm (24 in). The function of the zig-zag web decorations is unclear, but they may serve to make the spider appear larger or to act as a warning sign.
A European paper wasp (Polistes dominula) heating a bubble of regurgitated fluid in the sunlight. This is a common practice among many winged insects, and it is believed to be a way to facilitate digestion or to cool themselves off.
Planthoppers are insects in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. This photograph shows three adult Phromnia rosea planthoppers on a stem, with three nymphs underneath; the adults fold their wings in a tent-like fashion, while the nymphs are clad in a dense tangle of white wax threads. Both the adults and the nymphs feed by sucking sap from the host plant.
The Forest scorpion (Cercophonius squama) is a scorpion native to southeastern Australia and Tasmania. The body is 25 to 40 millimetres (0.98 to 1.57 in) long, and coloured creamy yellow to orange brown with dark brown variegations. The legs are yellow with some dark brown pigment.
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