Gradual Metamorphosis

Order Orthoptera

• Gradual metamorphosis

• Hind legs modified for jumping

• Known for making sounds

Locusts of Biblical and Modern Times are Grasshoppers

• Locusts Swarms

• A swarm of 80 million locusts/sq km can travel up to 90 miles a day eating the same amount of food as 35,000 people

Camel or Cave Cricket

• Like cool, damp areas

  • Basements

• Non-chirping people-intimidators

• High jumpers with bad eyesight

• Spricket/Spider

• Cricket?

Field Cricket

• Chirpers

• Katydid

• Leaf mimic

• Make raspy noises

Order Phasmida

• Herbivores

• Gradual metamorphosis

• Walking sticks: worldwide

• Leaf insects: tropical regions

Order Mantodea: Mantids

• Predators

• Gradual metamorphosis

• Spiny front legs adapted for grasping prey

• Head can turn many directions

  • Unusual for insects

Mantid Mating

• Sexual cannabalism

• Females sometimes eat males during/after mating

• Benefit to female

  • Nutrients for eggs

• Benefit to male

  • Genes are more likely to be passed on

Earwigs

• Gradual metamorphosis

• Pincers on end of abdomen

• Females guard eggs

  • Uncommon in insects

• Don’t go in human ears

  • Named after wing shape

Order Hemiptera: True Bugs

• ALL have piercing-sucking mouthparts

• Feeding habits depend on species

• Most successful order with gradual metamorphosis

  • Most species

• Transmit plant diseases

Giant Water Bug

• Female glues eggs to male’s back then goes to find another mate

• Toe-biters

  • Painful

Assassin Bugs

• Predators of insects

• Few parasites

Stink Bugs

• Mostly plant feeders

• Protective odors

Bed Bugs

• Blood sucking parasites

• Painless bite

• Red welts

  • May be in a line

Aphids

Drink plant juices

Scale Insects

• Often covered with waxy secretions

• Products: cochineal dye

Order Phthiraptera: Lice

• Gradual metamorphosis

• All are secondarily wingless

  • Ancestors had wings, but lost them through natural selection

Head Lice

• Don’t transmit disease

  • Indirect transfer common

• Females cement eggs to hair

• Use medicated shampoo and nit combs

  • Lots of resistance now

Body Lice

• Found among homeless, impoverished, war refugees, prisons

• Unlikely on anyone who bathes and changes clothes weekly

• Transmit disease: typhus

  • 20% fatality or more

  • War fever/jail fever

Pubic Lice - “Crabs”

• Lock onto strand of hair and almost never let go

• Inhabit coarse hair

  • Pubic, eyebrows, chest, facial hair, armpits

• Allergic reaction to saliva leads to terrible itching

• Not known to transmit disease

• Not spread by toilet seats

  • Can’t live very long away from human host

  • Can’t hold onto smooth surfaces

• Sexual contact is most efficient transmission

• OTC lice-killing lotion can be used