Author: Simmone Clout
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121/150: A tale of springtails
Animalia: Arthropoda: Collembola: Entomobryomorpha: Entomobryidae: Entomobrya: Entomobrya gisini (Christiansen, 1958) Slender springtails are tiny, abundant organisms that are less than 1 cm long. There can be thousands of springtails within a square meter of soil. They live in damp habitats and can be found in soil, leaf litter, rotting logs, and sometimes you may see…
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108/150: Dead moose, buffet, fighting arena, or dance floor? For waltzing flies, it’s all the above
Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Diptera: Piophilidae: Piophilinae: Prochyliza: Prochyliza xanthostoma (Walker, 1849) This North American fly occurs in forests, aggregating around moose carcasses as they are carrion feeders. Females will wait on vegetation surrounding a carcass and watch males combat on the carcass. The flies are sexually dimorphic and males have larger antennae, head capsules, and…
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106/150: Thrips are tiny insects with big agricultural implications
Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Thysanoptera: Thripidae: Thripinae: Frankliniella: Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande, 1895) Western flower thrips belong to the order Thysanoptera. These insects are very small (~1mm long) and elongated with long thin wings fringed with hairs. Like true bugs, they have small piercing and sucking mouthparts on the underside for feeding on plant tissue.
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104/150: Feeling crabby about pubic lice?
Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Psocodea: Pthiridae: Pthirus: Pthirus pubis (Linnaeus, 1758) Humans host three types of lice, which are wingless and unable to jump so they spend their entire lifecycle on the host. The pubic louse, a blood sucking parasite that lives exclusively on humans, can thrive anywhere on the body with coarse hair, such as…
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91/150: Don’t impede this millipede!
Animalia: Arthropoda: Diplopoda: Polyxenida: Polyxenidae: Polyxenus: Polyxenus lagurus (Linnaeus, 1758) Bristle millipedes live in dark and damp habitats like logs and soil that other millipedes also call home. Unlike other millipedes, bristle millipedes grow spikes like a porcupine because they lack the chemical defenses possessed by most millipedes.
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78/150: Jumping bloodsuckers Batman! It’s a flea!
Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae: Ceratophyllinae: Ceratophyllus: Ceratophyllus vison (Baker, 1904) This species of flea is an ectoparasitic insect of squirrels, living on red squirrels east of the Rocky Mountains and Douglas squirrels to the west. Being an ectoparasite means that they live on a host, so fleas have evolved particular features that help them…