Sting (biology)
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Sting (biology)
A stinger (or sting) is a sharp organ found in various animals (typically insects and other arthropods) capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal. An insect sting is complicated by its introduction of venom, although not all stings are venomous. Bites, which can introduce saliva as well as additional pathogens and diseases, are often confused with stings, and vice versa. Specific components of venom are believed to give rise to an allergic reaction, which in turn produces skin lesions that may vary from a small itching weal, or slightly elevated area of the skin, to large areas of inflamed skin covered by vesicles and crusted lesions. Stinging insects produce a painful swelling of the skin, the severity of the lesion varying according to the location of the sting, the identity of the insect and the sensitivity of the subject. Many species of bees and wasps have two poison glands, one gland secreting a toxin in which formic acid is one ...
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Honey Bee
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America (early 16th century), North America (early 17th century), and Australia (early 19th century). Honey bees are known for their construction of perennial colonial nests from wax, the large size of their colonies, and surplus production and storage of honey, distinguishing their hives as a prized foraging target of many animals, including honey badgers, bears and human hunter-gatherers. Only eight surviving species of honey bee are recognized, with a total of 43 subspecies, though historically 7 to 11 species are recognized. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. The best known honey bee is the western h ...
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Ganglion
A ganglion is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system there are both sympathetic and parasympathetic ganglia which contain the cell bodies of postganglionic sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons respectively. A pseudoganglion looks like a ganglion, but only has nerve fibers and has no nerve cell bodies. Structure Ganglia are primarily made up of somata and dendritic structures which are bundled or connected. Ganglia often interconnect with other ganglia to form a complex system of ganglia known as a plexus. Ganglia provide relay points and intermediary connections between different neurological structures in the body, such as the peripheral and central nervous systems. Among vertebrates there are three major groups of ganglia: * Dorsal root ganglia (also known as the spinal ganglia) contain the cell bodies of ...
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Mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla ( hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora ( cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, toget ...
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Honey Bee
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America (early 16th century), North America (early 17th century), and Australia (early 19th century). Honey bees are known for their construction of perennial colonial nests from wax, the large size of their colonies, and surplus production and storage of honey, distinguishing their hives as a prized foraging target of many animals, including honey badgers, bears and human hunter-gatherers. Only eight surviving species of honey bee are recognized, with a total of 43 subspecies, though historically 7 to 11 species are recognized. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. The best known honey bee is the western h ...
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Ovipositor
The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typically its form is adapted to functions such as preparing a place for the egg, transmitting the egg, and then placing it properly. For most insects, the organ is used merely to attach the egg to some surface, but for many parasitic species (primarily in wasps and other Hymenoptera), it is a piercing organ as well. Some ovipositors only retract partly when not in use, and the basal part that sticks out is known as the scape, or more specifically oviscape, the word ''scape'' deriving from the Latin word '' scāpus'', meaning "stalk" or "shaft". In insects Grasshoppers use their ovipositors to force a burrow into the earth to receive the eggs. Cicadas pierce the wood of twigs with their ovipositors to insert the eggs. Sawflies slit the ...
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Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism (complete metamorphosis)—that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature. Etymology The name Hymenoptera refers to the wings of the insects, but the original derivation is ambiguous. All references agree that the derivation involves the Ancient Greek πτερόν (''pteron'') for wing. The Ancient Greek ὑμήν (''hymen'') for membrane provides a plausible etymology for the term because species in this order have membranous wings. However, a key characteristic of this order is that the hindwings are ...
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Onychocerus Albitarsis
''Onychocerus albitarsis'' is a relatively rare species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae from the Amazon and Atlantic forest regions in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and southern Peru. It is remarkable for being the only known beetle that has a venomous sting (as opposed to spraying toxins like bombardier beetles or secreting toxins from the body like blister beetles) and the only known arthropod that stings with its antennae. Each antenna ends in a stinger that has evolved to resemble a scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always en ...'s tail and it is connected to a venom gland. The sting was already reported in 1884 but researchers thought the pain only was caused by the sharpness of the antennae, as also known from some other beetles. It was only confirmed in 2005 t ...
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Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirement of William P. Sisler in 2017, the university appointed as Director George Andreou. The press maintains offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts near Harvard Square, and in London, England. The press co-founded the distributor TriLiteral LLC with MIT Press and Yale University Press. TriLiteral was sold to LSC Communications in 2018. Notable authors published by HUP include Eudora Welty, Walter Benjamin, E. O. Wilson, John Rawls, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Jay Gould, Helen Vendler, Carol Gilligan, Amartya Sen, David Blight, Martha Nussbaum, and Thomas Piketty. The Display Room in Harvard Square, dedicated to selling HUP publications, closed on June 17, 2009. Related publishers, imprints, and series HUP owns the Belknap Press imp ...
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Hornet
Hornets (insects in the genus ''Vespa'') are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to their close relatives yellowjackets. Some species can reach up to in length. They are distinguished from other vespine wasps by the relatively large top margin of the head. Worldwide, 22 species of ''Vespa'' are recognized.A.H. Smith-Pardo, J.M. Carpenter, L. Kimsey (2020) The diversity of hornets in the genus ''Vespa'' (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Vespinae), their importance and interceptions in the United States. Insect Systematics and Diversity 4(3) https://doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixaa006 Most species only occur in the tropics of Asia, though the European hornet (''V. crabro''), is widely distributed throughout Europe, Russia, North America, and north-eastern Asia. Wasps native to North America in the genus '' Dolichovespula'' are commonly referred to as hornets (e.g., baldfaced hornets), but are actually yellowjackets. Like other social wasps, hornets build communal n ...
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Vespula Vulgaris SEM Sting 01
''Vespula'' is a small genus of social wasps, widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. Along with members of their sister genus '' Dolichovespula'', they are collectively known by the common name yellowjackets (or yellow jackets) in North America. ''Vespula'' species have a shorter oculomalar space (shown in the figure below right) and a more pronounced tendency to nest underground than ''Dolichovespula''. Notable species * While most species of this genus inhabit North America, four ''Vespula'' species inhabit Europe, namely ''V. austriaca, V. germanica, V. rufa'' and ''V. vulgaris'' * Two common European species, the German wasp (''Vespula germanica'') and the common wasp (''Vespula vulgaris''), have established in other countries: both species are now found in New Zealand, Australia and South America, while the former has also been introduced in North America, and the latter in southern Africa. * The eastern yellowjacket (''Vespula maculifrons'') and western yello ...
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