Tag proboscis

How many muscles are in an Elephant’s trunk?

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How many muscles are in an Elephant’s trunk? 

The trunk (nose) of the African Savannah Elephant (Loxodonta africana), a large mammal in the Elephantidae family, is its nose or proboscis.

The African Elephant eats grass, trees, bushes, fruit, and bark. It uses its trunk to rip branches from trees to put them in its mouth. It can also pick up small objects of food with its trunk – the trunk is a prehensile appendage. For drinking, its trunk is used as a siphon to suck up water. Its trunk is also used to squirt water over its body to keep cool, trumpet to communicate, and snorkel to breath underwater.

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Downlooker Snipe Fly

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The Downlooker Snipe Fly (Rhagio scolopaceus) is an insect in the Rhagionidae family of snipe flies. 

The Downlooker Snipe Fly has a slender brown body and six long stilt-like legs. It has a proboscis (sucking mouthpart) that looks like the long, slender beak of a a Snipe bird. Its head points downwards when it rests on an object or tree trunk. It does not have bristles (hairs) like the Housefly. Its wings are translucent (clear) with dark-brown markings. 

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Spring Heath Robber Fly

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The Spring Heath Robber Fly (Lasiopogon cinctus) is an insect in the Asilidae family of robber flies. 

The Spring Heath Robber Fly is hairy with bristles and smoky-coloured wings. Its body has three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. Its dark body is long and tapered with yellow-grey bands on its abdomen. It has a short proboscis (sucking nose) and three simple eyes, called ocelli, between their two compound eyes. Its antennae are short with three segments. It has six spiny black legs. It has a sharp ovipositor (egg-laying segment). 

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Spanish Gatekeeper Butterfly

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The Spanish Gatekeeper Butterfly (Pyronia bathseba) is an insect in the Nymphalidae family of brush-footed butterflies.

The Spanish Gatekeeper Butterfly is brown and cream with orange on its forewings (front wings). On its forewings, it has a black circle with one or two white spots inside, called an eyespot. The underside of its hind wings (back wings) is brown with four or five orange-rimmed eyespots. The female has four eyespots on the underside hind wing, whereas the male has five. It also has a distinctive creamy bar across its hind wing. Its body is fluffy, thick, and brown. It has club-shaped antennae.

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Common Blue Butterfly

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The Common Blue Butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) is an insect in the Lycaenidae family of blue butterflies.

The Common Blue male has iridescent blue wings above with a thin, black-brown border and white fringe. The female is brown above with blue flecks, like dust, and orange spots. Both the male and the female have a row of red or orange spots along the edge of the hindwing (back wing). 

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Dark-Edged Bee Fly

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The Dark-Edged Bee Fly (Bombylius major) is an insect in the Bombyliidae family of flies. It is also known as the Large Bee Fly or the Large Humblefly.

The Dark-Edged Bee Fly is the similar size and shape of a Bumblebee (Bombus sp.), but its body is more triangular. It is dark-coloured with a brown hairy thorax and abdomen. It has translucent wings with a dark-brown edge. When it rests, its wings are spread out. Bumblebees have two pairs of wings, but the Dark-Edged Bee Fly has only one pair of wngs. 

Its long, grey proboscis (nose) looks like a stinger or sword on the top of its head. Its proboscis is always straight (like a unicorn horn) because it cannot curl or retract it. Butterflies, for example, can roll up their proboscis. The Dark-Edged Bee Fly has long legs. It has short antennae. Unlike a bee, it does not have a stinger.

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Round Mouthed Snail

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The Round Mouthed Snail (Pomatias elegans) is a small, air-breathing, terrestrial (land) gastropod mollusc in the Pomatiidae family of operculate land snails. It is an invertebrate, because it does not have a backbone. Its shell is its exo-skeleton (outside skeleton).

The Round Mouthed Snail has a thick, whitish, conical shell and wide mouth with a chalky operculum (lid) at the rear of its body. The shell forms a whorl. The top of the spire points upward and the opening of its mouth is on the right – so it has a right-handed whorl, which is called a dextral shell. It can close its shell’s mouth with its lid. Its head extends to form a snout (proboscis). It has only one pair of tentacles on its head (instead of two pairs). Its eyes are at the tip of the tentacles. 

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Coffin Fly

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The Coffin Fy (Phoridea sp.) is a small insect in the Phoridae family of coffin and scuttle flies. It is a phorid fly. It is also known as the Hump-Backed Fly or the Phorid Fly.

The Coffin Fly resembles a Fruit Fly. It has a brown-black body with a humped back (a humped thorax). Sometimes, it is yellow, orange, pale-grey, or pale-white. Its bristly head is rounded with two compound eyes. The male has close-set eyes, whereas the female has wide-set eyes. This is called dichoptic. It has short antennae with feathered tips. It has a short proboscis, which is a tubular mouthpart for sucking nectar from plants. It has six brown legs. Its wings are translucent (see-through) with black veins. Unlike other flies, its wings do not have cross-veins.

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Large White Butterfly

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The Large White Butterfly (Pieris brassicae) is a small insect in the Pieridae family of white and yellow butterflies. It is also known as the Large Cabbage White. It is a close relative of the Small White Butterfly (Pieris rapae). 

The Large White Butterfly is white with distinct dark-black tips on its forewings (front wings). The female has two large black spots in the middle of its forewings. The male has no black dots. Its upperside is creamy-white, and its underside is pale-greenish. Its body is black.

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Monarch Butterfly

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The Monarch Butterfly (Danus plexippus) is an insect in the Nymphalidae family of milkweed butterfies. It is also known as the Milkweed Butterfly, Common Tiger Butterfly, Wanderer Butterfly, and the Black-Veined Brown Butterfly. 

The Monarch Butterfly has black, orange, and white wings. The undersides of its wings are orange-brown. It has black veins and small white spots in the margins at the edge of its wings. The male has a black spot on each hind (back) wing. Its body and its six legs are black. 

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Asian Tiger Mosquito

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The Asian Tiger Mosquito (Aedes albopictus orStegomyia albopicta) is a small insect from the Culicidae family of mosquitoes. It is also known as the Forest Day Mosquito.

The Asian Tiger Mosquito has white bands on its long, thin, silvery-black legs and black body. It has a single silvery-white line of scales that begins between its eyes and continues down its back. It has bushy antennae and compound eyes. It has a dark-coloured proboscis (long nose) for sucking blood from the body of animals or humans.

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Robber Fly

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The Robber Fly (Asilidae sp.) is an insect. It is also known as the Assassin Fly.

The Robber Fly is hairy with bristles. Its body has three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. Its body is long and tapered, and can be brown, black, or grey. It has a short proboscis (sucking nose) and three simple eyes, called ocelli, between their two compound eyes. Its antennae are short with three segments. It has six spiny legs. It has a sharp ovipositor (egg-laying segment). It has smoky-coloured wings.

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