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How Mosquitoes Use Six Needles to Suck Your Blood

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How Mosquitoes Use Six Needles to Suck Your Blood

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How Mosquitoes Use Six Needles to Suck Your Blood  |  Deep Look

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There are seven levels to the taxonomical hierarchy of living things. From the broadest level to the most specific, they are: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. An easy way to remember all seven levels in the correct order is by using the following mnemonic:

We can use the red imported fire ant ( Solenopsis invicta) as an example of how to classify an organism using taxonomy. Here is how this species falls into each taxonomic level:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Hymenoptera

Family: Formicidae

Genus: Solenopsis

Species: Solenopsis invicta

The hierarchy starts out very general at Kingdom and more specific information is gained about the organism the further down the hierarchy we go, up until we reach Species. All insects form a Class of their own called Insecta and all insects belong to the same Phylum (Arthropoda) and Kingdom (Animalia). The major groups of insects can be seen within the Order, which is why we focus on this level for the basics of learning how to identify insects.

There are many ways that we can identify different groups of insects. It is best to consider as many physical characteristics as possible. Luckily for us, the mouthparts are pretty reliable for distinguishing between the major insect groups.

Ants belong to the Hymenoptera order, but if we want to identify an insect even further to its family, genus, or species, we need to look really closely at the rest of the insect's body, as well as its mouthparts. Knowing where the insect lives and what other animals and plants it interacts with also helps in the identification process.

Here's a list of the most common insect orders with their common names and mouthpart types:

Coleoptera (beetles) - chewing

Diptera (flies) - sponging (non-biting), piercing-sucking (biting)

Odonata (dragonflies) - chewing

Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) - chewing (ants), chewing-lapping (bees and wasps)

Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) - siphoning

Hemiptera (true bugs*) - piercing-sucking

Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids and crickets) - chewing

Want to learn the details of how insects use their mouthparts to eat? Check out this site or this one. At the University of Kentucky, the Department of Entomology also provides a breakdown of mouthparts for master gardeners. North Carolina State University includes drawings and photos of the different components that make up mouthparts.

If you're interested in learning how to identify insects, here are some other useful links to get you started, including this one and this one.

*The Hemiptera order is very diverse, containing a lot of insects that don't really look very similar to each other. This group is otherwise known as the "true bugs," and they're distinct from other insect orders because of their piercing-sucking mouthpart type and their front wings. All true bugs are insects, but not all insects are true bugs!

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A simple way to tell insects apart - Anika Hazra

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There are nearly a million known insect species in the world, but most have one of just five common types of mouthparts. Why is this information useful to scientists? Anika Hazra explains how the features of an insect's mouthparts can help identify which order it belongs to, while also providing clues about how it evolved and what it feeds on.

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How Can Animals Use their Senses to Communicate? is part of Smithsonian Science for the Classroom, a brand new curriculum series by the Smithsonian Science Education Center. It is aligned to a group of grade 4 standards. It has a focus on life science with a secondary focus on physical science and engineering. In this module, students:

Analyze structures that support animals' senses and investigate how light travels when they see an object

Investigate how information is processed in the brain and analyze data to determine how memories can affect behaviors

Carry out an investigation into whether fiddler crabs wave more often when there are other crabs present and analyze the system in terms of sender, signal, and receiver

Design and test a method for sending information about a picture using 1s and 0s and short and long flashes of light

Construct an argument based on testing with models for which firefly flash patterns are the most effective for communicating to find a mate

Below are digital resources that support teaching of this module.

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How Can Animals Use their Senses to Communicate?

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How Can Animals Use their Senses to Communicate? is part of Smithsonian Science for the Classroom, a brand new curriculum series by the Smithsonian Science Education Center. It is aligned to a group of grade 4 standards. It has a focus on life science with a secondary focus on physical science and engineering.

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Parents And Educators | NASA Space Place - NASA Science for Kids

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Resources for educators to teach students about NASA space and Earth science

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Trophic cascade, keystone species, living organisms effect on the physical environment

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Visit http://sustainableman.org/ to explore the world of sustainability.
For more from George Monbiot, visit http://www.monbiot.com/

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? George Monbiot explains in this movie remix.

B-Roll Credits:
"Greater Yellowstone Coalition - Wolves" (http://bit.ly/1lK4LaT)
"Wolf Mountain" (http://bit.ly/1hgi6JE)
"Primodial - Yellowstone" (https://vimeo.com/77097538)
"Timelapse: Yellowstone National Park" (http://bit.ly/1kF5axc)
"Yellowstone" (http://bit.ly/1bPI6DM)
"Howling Wolves - Heulende Wölfe" (http://bit.ly/1c2Oidv)
Interview from TED: "For more wonder, rewild the world" by George Monbiot
"Fooled by Nature: Beaver Dams" (http://bit.ly/NGgQSU) 

Music Credits:
"Unfoldment, Revealment, Evolution, Exposition, Integration, Arson" by Chris Zabriskie (http://bit.ly/1c2uckW)

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the US Copyright Law.

For any concerns or questions, you may contact us athttp://sustainableman.org/contact/

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Includes an interesting history and insight into how artificial light has affected our lives.

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Humans have a long history of inventions: electricity, telephones, computers, music - the list goes on. It's clear we're constantly manipulating the world around us.

But those inventions are also shaping us.

Ainissa Ramirez explores the ongoing push and pull between humans and their inventions in her new book The Alchemy of Us.

Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia.

Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Viet Le and fact-checked by Berly McCoy.

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Humans have a long history of inventions: electricity, telephones, computers, music - the list goes on. It's clear we're shaping the world around us. But as Ainissa Ramirez explains in her new book, The Alchemy of Us, those inventions are shaping us, too.

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Spiders use the planetary electric field to move long distances.

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But Erica Morley and Daniel Robert have an explanation. The duo, who work at the University of Bristol, has shown that spiders can sense the Earth's electric field, and use it to launch themselves into the air.

Every day, around 40,000 thunderstorms crackle around the world, collectively turning Earth's atmosphere into a giant electrical circuit. The upper reaches of the atmosphere have a positive charge, and the planet's surface has a negative one. Even on sunny days with cloudless skies, the air carries a voltage of around 100 volts for every meter above the ground. In foggy or stormy conditions, that gradient might increase to tens of thousands of volts per meter.

Ballooning spiders operate within this planetary electric field. When their silk leaves their bodies, it typically picks up a negative charge. This repels the similar negative charges on the surfaces on which the spiders sit, creating enough force to lift them into the air. And spiders can increase those forces by climbing onto twigs, leaves, or blades of grass. Plants, being earthed, have the same negative charge as the ground that they grow upon, but they protrude into the positively charged air. This creates substantial electric fields between the air around them and the tips of their leaves and branches-and the spiders ballooning from those tips.

This idea-flight by electrostatic repulsion-was first proposed in the early 1800s, around the time of Darwin's voyage. Peter Gorham, a physicist, resurrected the idea in 2013, and showed that it was mathematically plausible. And now, Morley and Robert have tested it with actual spiders.

First, they showed that spiders can detect electric fields. They put the arachnids on vertical strips of cardboard in the center of a plastic box, and then generated electric fields between the floor and ceiling of similar strengths to what the spiders would experience outdoors. These fields ruffled tiny sensory hairs on the spiders' feet, known as trichobothria. "It's like when you rub a balloon and hold it up to your hairs," Morley says.

In response, the spiders performed a set of movements called tiptoeing-they stood on the ends of their legs and stuck their abdomens in the air. "That behavior is only ever seen before ballooning," says Morley. Many of the spiders actually managed to take off, despite being in closed boxes with no airflow within them. And when Morley turned off the electric fields inside the boxes, the ballooning spiders dropped.

It's especially important, says Angela Chuang, from the University of Tennessee, to know that spiders can physically detect electrostatic changes in their surroundings. "[That's] the foundation for lots of interesting research questions," she says. "How do various electric-field strengths affect the physics of takeoff, flight, and landing? Do spiders use information on atmospheric conditions to make decisions about when to break down their webs, or create new ones?"

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Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity

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But Erica Morley and Daniel Robert have an explanation. The duo, who work at the University of Bristol, has shown that spiders can sense the Earth's electric field, and use it to launch themselves into the air. Every day, around 40,000 thunderstorms crackle around the world, collectively turning Earth's atmosphere into a giant electrical circuit.

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Watch This Billion-Year Journey of Earth’s Tectonic Plates (Published 2021)

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A new simulation offers a different view of how the continents we live on drifted into their current configuration.

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Plate tectonics and the evolution of the planet and life on Earth

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subscribe to Short Wave podcast

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Encore episode. The surface of the Earth is constantly recycled through the motion of plate tectonics. So how do researchers study what it used to look like? Planetary scientist Roger Fu talks to host Maddie Sofia about hunting for rocks that can tell us what Earth looked like a few billion years ago, in the early days of the evolution of life.

Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Emily Vaughn with help from Rebecca Ramirez. It was edited by Viet Le and fact-checked by Emily Vaughn.

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What Earth Looked Like 3.2 Billion Years Ago : Short Wave

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Encore episode. The surface of the Earth is constantly recycled through the motion of plate tectonics. So how do researchers study what it used to look like? Planetary scientist Roger Fu talks to host Maddie Sofia about hunting for rocks that can tell us what Earth looked like a few billion years ago, in the early days of the evolution of life.Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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EcoHealth Grade 4: Bio-engineers - How mosquitoes affect the physical environment