British Insects: the Insect Orders
British Insects: the Insect Orders |
|
Unless indicated otherwise, the following attributes are implicit throughout the descriptions, except where the characters concerned are inapplicable.
Life-style of the species. Life-style non-parasitic.
Adult insects. Terrestrial; not particularly associated with water; not social.
Parasitising invertebrates only; not ‘jumpers’; mute. The fore-legs not conspicuously raptorial, the posture not ‘praying mantis-like’; not slender and stick-like in appearance (not ‘stick insects’). Head not rigidly beaked. Mouthparts functional for feeding. Antennae present. Compound eyes present and well developed. Without the ‘neck’ characteristic of Raphidioptera. Hind-wings not represented by halteres. Wings without ‘corneous dots’; not fringed. Wings of the resting insect not held roof-like. Abdomen not spectacularly appendaged; with no rudimentary abdominal limbs.
Eggs The eggs not laid in batches within a protective case (ootheca).
Larvae. Larvae terrestrial; without anal prolegs; drab.
Comments. Males not having fore-wings reduced to knobbed, haltere-like structures, and the females not larviform parasites; i.e., by contrast with Strepsiptera (q.v.).
To view the illustrations with detailed captions, go to the interactive key. This also offers full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. British insects: the insect orders. Version: 9th June 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.