The mature worker ants wear these cultures on their chest plates and sometimes on their surrounding thoraces and legs as a biofilm.
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Not much is known about Myrmecia rowlandi, but workers typically are 13-21 mm long. Their heads and thoraces are black, their legs are a brownish black colour, mandibles are yellow, and antennae are red.
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These tracheal gills are multifunctional and key to many biological processes. No dense tufts or branching gills are found on their thoraces or abdomens, unlike other Plecoptera families. The larvae also possess broad, chisel-like mandibles. Adults have two ocelli in addition to its two compound eyes.
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They are small, hairy moths, with reduced or absent mouthparts and fringed wings. They often perch with their abdomens sticking out at 90° from their thoraces and wings. North American moths are mostly cryptic browns, sometimes marked with white or green, but the hag moth mimics bees.Wagner, D.L. (2005).
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Foundresses and gynes have larger ovaries and more fat content than workers do. Workers have broad heads, while the reproductive caste wasps have broader thoraces and gasters. Typically, foundresses are larger than their subordinates. Also, about 98% of queens (foundresses) and 95% of gynes are found to be inseminated, while workers are not.
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Calliphoridae adults are commonly shiny with metallic colouring, often with blue, green, or black thoraces and abdomens. Antennae are three-segmented and aristate. The arista are plumose the entire length, and the second antennal segment is distinctly grooved. Members of Calliphoridae have branched Rs 2 veins, frontal sutures are present, and calypters are well developed.
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Gollumiellinae are unique in that they hook their eggs onto the plants and connect a ropey secretion to them, which stand erect. This acts as an attraction mechanism for Paratrechina ants. Gollumiellinae larvae burrow into the hosts' thoraces and feed there. The rest of its life cycle is similar to the aforementioned life cycle of eucharitids.
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It has a defense mechanism in which it smears excrement on its body to mask its vibrant color and deter predators. This gives it a shiny black appearance, as opposed to yellow or white. Adults, on average, are about 5 mm long and have dark-blue wing covers and red legs. Their thoraces range in color from red to orange to reddish brown.
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Dealated queens with developed wings and thoraces are considered rare. In some species, such as M. brevinoda and M. pilosula, three forms of queens exist, with the dealated queens being the most recognisable. Males are easy to identify due to their perceptibly broad and smaller mandibles. Their antennae consist of 13 segments, and are almost the same length as the ants' bodies.
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Choeradodis is a genus of praying mantises with common names such as shield mantis, hood mantis (or hooded mantis), and leaf mantis (or leafy mantis) because of their extended, leaf-like thoraces. Wood-Mason, J. 1880. Synopsis of the species of Choeradodis, a remarkable genus of Mantodea common to Indian and Tropical America. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 47(1):82-84.
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Strepsipterans are a unique group of insects with major sexual dimorphism. The females spend their entire lives in a grub- like state, parasitizing larger insects. The only time they ever come out of their host insect is to extend their fused heads and thoraces for males to notice. The males are also parasites, but they eventually will leave their host to seek their female counterparts.
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Eumolpinae can be recognized at first sight by their rounded thoraces, more or less spherical or bell-shaped, but always significantly narrower than the mesothorax as covered by the elytra. Additional features include a small head set deeply into the thorax, and usually well-developed legs. They generally resemble other Chrysomelidae, but differ in having front coxae rounded and third tarsal segment bilobed beneath. Many are metallic, or yellow and spotted.
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Shield bugs have glands in their thoraces between the first and second pair of legs that produce a foul-smelling liquid, which is used defensively to deter potential predators and is sometimes released when the bugs are handled. The nymphs, similar to adults except smaller and without wings, also have stink glands. The nymphs and adults have piercing mouthparts, which most use to suck sap from plants, although some eat other insects. When they group in large numbers, they can become significant pests.
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Aeshna speciosa fossil These are relatively large dragonflies. Their thoraces and abdomens are brown in color, with blue or yellow stripes or spots on the thorax, and yellow, blue or green spots on the abdomen. Natalia von Ellenrieder's 2003 paper demonstrated that the Holarctic and Neotropical species placed in this genus did not share a common ancestor, and proposed the latter be placed in the genus Rhionaeschna. The name Aeshna was coined by the Danish entomologist Fabricius in the 18th century.
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Since the nests of Apis dorsata are fairly exposed and accessible to predators, these giant honeybees exhibit strong and aggressive defense strategies. Their predators include wasps, hornets, birds, and human bee-hunters. Their defense strategies typically include physical contact, especially when they face attacks from wasps. These giant honeybees utilize a method called “heat balling,” in which they heat their thoraces to a temperature of 45 degrees Celsius (which is lethal to wasps.) Another method that Apis dorsata utilizes against wasps is referred to as “shimmering” behavior or defense waving.
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Green-head ants are prey for a number of predators, including assassin bugs and the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), in the faeces of which have been found worker ants. Birds also eat these ants, including the Australian white ibis (Threskiornis moluccus), black kite (Milvus migrans), masked lapwing (Vanellus miles) and the Australian owlet-nightjar (Aegotheles cristatus). Workers and larvae can be infected by parasites; examined workers were seen with late-stage pupae of an unidentified parasite in their thoraces. In some nests of the green-head ant, some myrmecophilous insects such as the beetle Chlamydopsis longipes are sometimes seen living inside colonies.
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They can be distinguished from A. punctatum by the fact that A. punctatum has a thorax with a pronounced "humped" shape. S. paniceum and L. serricorne have thoraces which have a much less obtuse looking angle when viewed from the side compared to A. punctatum, and thus could be difficult to tell apart. However S. paniceum has a distinct three- segmented "club" at the end of each antenna whereas L. serricorne has uniformly serrated antennae of 11 segments. L. serricorne also has much weaker punctures on the surface of the wing covers (elytra) than the other two species.
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The Aulacidae are a small, cosmopolitan family, with two extant genera containing some 200 known species. They are primarily endoparasitoids of wood wasps (Xiphydriidae) and xylophagous beetles (Cerambycidae and Buprestidae). They are closely related to the family Gasteruptiidae, sharing the feature of having the first and second metasomal tergites fused, and having the head on a long pronotal "neck", though they are not nearly as slender and elongate as gasteruptiids, nor are their hind legs club-like, and they have more sculptured thoraces. They share the evanioid trait of having the metasoma attached very high above the hind coxae on the propodeum.
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Portia schultzi is a jumping spider which ranges from South Africa in the south to Kenya in the north, and also is found in West Africa and Madagascar. In this species, which is slightly smaller than some other species of the genus Portia, the bodies of females are 5 to 7 mm long, while those of males are 4 to 6 mm long. The carapaces of both sexes are orange-brown with dark brown mottling, and covered with dark brown and whitish hairs lying over the surface. Males have white tufts on their thoraces and a broad white band above the bases of the legs, and these features are less conspicuous in females.
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