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mosquito

(Encyclopedia)mosquito məskēˈtō [key], small, long-legged insect of the order Diptera, the true flies. The females of most species have piercing and sucking mouth parts and apparently they must feed at least on...

water bug

(Encyclopedia)water bug, name for a large number of water-living bugs, comprising several families of the order Hemiptera (true bugs). All have jointed, sharp, sucking beaks, breathe air, and undergo gradual metamo...

wings

(Encyclopedia)CE5 A. Structure of a bird wing B. Structure of a bat wing wings, flight organs of the bird, the bat, and the insect. Birds' wings are pectoral appendages that are basically the same in skeletal...

herbarium

(Encyclopedia)herbarium, collection of dried and mounted plant specimens used in systematic botany. To preserve their form and color, plants collected in the field are spread flat in sheets of newsprint and dried, ...

bee-eater

(Encyclopedia)bee-eater, any of the brightly colored, insect-eating birds of the family Meropidae. They range in length from 6 to 14 in. (15–36 cm). The plumage of many species is predominantly green but usually ...

backswimmer

(Encyclopedia)backswimmer, common name for water bugs of the cosmopolitan family Notonectidae, so named because they swim upside down, usually near the surface of the water. They have oval bodies and long, oarlike ...

termite

(Encyclopedia)termite or white ant, common name for a soft-bodied social insect of the infraorder Isoptera. Originally classified in as a separate order, termites are genetically related to cockroaches and are now ...

beetle

(Encyclopedia)beetle, common name for insects of the order Coleoptera, which, with more than 300,000 described species, is the largest of the insect orders. Beetles have chewing mouthparts and well-developed antenn...

metamorphosis

(Encyclopedia)metamorphosis mĕtˌəmôrˈfəsĭs [key] [Gr.,=transformation], in zoology, term used to describe a form of development from egg to adult in which there is a series of distinct stages. Many insects, ...

llanos

(Encyclopedia)llanos yäˈnōs [key], Spanish-American term for prairies, specifically those of the Orinoco River basin of N South America, in Venezuela and E Colombia. The llanos of the Orinoco are a vast, hot reg...