The Apollo Butterfly (Parnassius apollo) is a large insect. It is also referred to as the Mountain Apollo Butterfly.
The Apollo Butterfly has white wings with five large black eyespots on its forewing and two bright red or orang eyespots on its hindwing. Its wings have a shiny appearance with slightly transparent edges.
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The Antarctic Glyptonotus (Glyptonotus antarcticus) is a giant marine (saltwater) isopod crustacean. A crustacean includes crabs, shrimps, and lobsters.
The Antarctic Glyptonotus has a disc-shaped body with small outgrowths of hairs and knobbly scales. It has two pairs of compound eyes; one pair of eyes on its back and a smaller pair of eyes on its side. It has three pairs of front claws and eight legs.
It swims upside down.
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The Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis) is an arachnid.
The Nursery Web Spider is light-brown or dark-brown with a slender, hairy body and eight long legs.
It grows to 3 centimetres (one inch) long. The male has longer legs than the female.
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What is an invertebrate?
A vertebrate is an animal with a spine – a backbone. Vertebrates include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
An invertebrate is an animal without a spine.
Invertebrates include insects, arachnids (spiders), molluscs (snails), crustaceans (crabs), worms, coral, starfish, sponges, and jellyfish.
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The Arabian Fat-Tailed Scorpion (Androctonus crassicauda) is a venomous arachnid. An arachnid, like the spider, has eight legs.
The Arabian Fat-Tailed Scorpion has grasping front claws, called pedipalps, and a thick, segmented tail that curves over its back. At the end of the tail is a venomous stinger called a telson. It is highly venomous to humans.
The Arabian Fat-Tailed Scorpion is usually reddish-brown in colour, but it can also be brown to black. It does not have an inner skeleton (bones). Instead, like the spider, it has an exo-skeleton – an outer skeleton or shield that protects its body. The exo-skeleton is called the ecdysis.
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The Shield-Tailed Scorpion (Apistobuthus pterygocercus) is a venomous arachnid. An arachnid, like the spider, has eight legs. It is not an insect, because an insect has six legs.
The Shield-Tailed Scorpion has grasping front claws, called pedipalps, and a narrow, segmented tail that curves over its back. At the end of the tail is a venomous stinger. It is usually a sandy-yellow colour. It does not have an inner skeleton (bones). Instead, like the spider, it has an exo-skeleton – an outer skeleton or shield that protects its body. The exo-skeleton is called the ecdysis.
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The White-Tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) is an insect. It is a pollinator, because it collects pollen.
The White-Tailed Bumblebee has fluffy hairs with two bright yellow bands and a pure white tail. One yellow band is at the collar on the front of the thorax and the other yellow band is in the middle of the abdomen. It has a rounded head with short antennae.
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The Hebe Tiger Moth (Arctia festiva) is an insect in the Erebidae family of moths. It is also known as the English Beer Moth.
The Hebe Tiger Moth has pale yellow forewings (front wings) with black markings. Its hindwings (back wings) are orange with black markings. It has a wide black and orange body, with a black tail. Its antennae are short.
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The Milarias Tortoise Beetle (Capnodis miliaris) is an insect in the Buprestidae family of tortoise beetles.
The Miliaris Tortoise Beetle is matt black with scattered large spots on its abdomen. It has black wing cases, called elytra. Each wing case (elytron) is covered with white wax and a number of small nodules or lumps. Its antennae are short.
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The Orange-Barred Sulfur Butterfly (Phoebis philiea) is an insect.
The Orange-Barred Sulfur Butterfly has lemon-yellow wings with an orange smudge on its forewings (front wings) and orange edges on its hindwings (back wings). Its body is blackish with a paler rear end.
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The Stag Beetle (Lucanus cervus)is an insect in the Lucanidae family.
The male and female Stag Beetle look different. The male has large mandibles (jaws) that look like the horns of a stag (male deer), whereas the female has much smaller jaws.
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The Orange Ladybird Beetle (Halyzia sedecimguttata) is an insect in the Coccinellidae family of ladybirds. It is also known as the Orange Ladybug or the Orange Lady Beetle.
The Orange Ladybird Beetle has an oval and dome-shaped body. It is a striking orange colour with 16 (or less) large, creamy-white spots on its elytra (wing cases). It has 8 spots on each elytron. It has black compound eyes. Its antennae are light-brown, quite long, and slightly thickened at the ends. Its neck shield usually covers the head and shows orange colored spots.
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The Springtail (Microfalcula delamarei) is a micro-small, wingless hexapod. A hexapod has three pairs of legs (6 legs), but it is not an insect.
It is entognathous, which means that is has internal mouthparts in a gnathal (jaw) pouch. It is in the Collembola class and the Entomobryoidea super-family – like a terrestrial crustacean, because scientists think that it evolved from marine (saltwater) shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. Scientists first thought that it was an insect, but they have now changed the category to an entognathous animal.
The Springtail has three parts: the head capsule, a thorax (with three segments and 6 legs), and an abdomen (with five segments). Therefore, it looks like an insect. It has small antennae, two eyes, and mouthparts. The mouthparts have a pair of jaws. The two eyes are called composed eyes, because they are composed of 8 single eyes. It does not have a throat, so it breathes through a porous cuticle.
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The Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) is a common insect. It is also known as the Early-Nesting Bumblebee. It is a pollinator, because it collects pollen.
The Early Bumblebee has a rounded head and a yellow collar and yellow-reddish tail. It has black hairs on its abdomen.
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The Common Tiger Butterfly (Danaus genutia) is an insect in the Nymphalidae family and Danainae group of brush-footed butterflies called the crows and tigers. It is also known as the Striped Tiger Butterfly.
The Common Tiger Butterfly is similar to the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus). The Common Tiger Butterfly has tawny-brown wings with veins marked with broad black bands. The male has a pouch on the hindwing. Its wings have black margins with two rows of white spots. The undersides of its wings are similar to the uppersides, but paler.
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The Grasshopper Saga (Saga ephippigera ephippigera) is a medium-sized insect. It is in the Saginae sub-family of bush crickets, from the family of the Katydids.
The Grasshopper Saga has varied colours, from light-green and dark-green to dark-brown or light-brown. Its head is usually darker than its body. The male has short wings, but the female is wingless. It has large antennae. Its legs have thorns.
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The Common Sergeant Butterfly (Athyma perius) is a medium-sized insect in the Nymphalidae family.
The male Common Sergeant Butterfly has black wings with white markings. The undersides of its wings are yellow with white markings edged with black. Its thorax is black with bluish spots, and its abdomen is brown with white bands. Its antennae are long. The female is blackish-brown with a double row of minute black dots on her wings.
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The Hissing Cockroach (Gromphadorhina oblongonota) is an insect in the roach family. It is also known as a Wide-Horned Hisser.
The Hissing Cockroach is dark-brown to black with red-brown on its thick, waxy exo-skeleton. It has orange-brown sections with small spots on each side. The male has thicker, hairier antennae than the female. The male also has horn-type structures on the pronotum (the front section of its thorax). Unlike most cockroaches, the Hissing Cockroach is wingless. It has 6 legs, with pads and hooks on its feet that enable it to climb. It can even climb smooth glass.
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The Magicicada (Magicicada) is a 13-year or 17-year periodical cicada, an insect in the order Hemiptera.
The Magicicada photographed are from the 17-year periodical cicadas of Brood X (Brood Ten), called the Great Eastern Brood, which emerged in 2004. Periodical cicadas are grouped into broods based on the calendar year when they emerge from the ground. There were an estimated 1.5 million of them in 2004. Every 17 years, it tunnels to the surface of the ground to breed. The next emergence of the Great Eastern Brood is in 2021.
The adult Magicicada Great Eastern Brood had red eyes and a black thorax. Its wings are translucent with orange veins. The underside of its abdomen is black, orange, or striped with orange and black, depending on the species.
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