Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is an order of insects that includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 families and 46 superfamilies, 10 per cent of the total described species of living organisms, it is one of the most widespread and recognizable insect orders in the world. The Lepidoptera show many variations of the basic body structure that have evolved to gain advantages in lifestyle and distribution. Recent estimates suggest the order may have more species than earlier thought, is among the four most speciose orders, along with the Hymenoptera and Coleoptera. Lepidopteran species are characterized by more than three derived features; the most apparent is the presence of scales that cover the bodies, a proboscis. The scales are modified, flattened "hairs", give butterflies and moths their wide variety of colors and patterns. All species have some form of membranous wings, except for a few that have reduced wings or are wingless. Mating and the laying of eggs are carried out by adults near or on host plants for the larvae.
Like most other insects and moths are holometabolous, meaning they undergo complete metamorphosis. The larvae are called caterpillars, are different from their adult moth or butterfly forms, having a cylindrical body with a well-developed head, mandible mouth parts, three pairs of thoracic legs and from none up to five pairs of prolegs; as they grow, these larvae change in appearance, going through a series of stages called instars. Once matured, the larva develops into a pupa. A few butterflies and many moth species spin a silk case or cocoon prior to pupating, while others do not, instead going underground. A butterfly pupa, called a chrysalis, has a hard skin with no cocoon. Once the pupa has completed its metamorphosis, a sexually mature adult emerges; the Lepidoptera have, over millions of years, evolved a wide range of wing patterns and coloration ranging from drab moths akin to the related order Trichoptera, to the brightly colored and complex-patterned butterflies. Accordingly, this is the most recognized and popular of insect orders with many people involved in the observation, collection, rearing of, commerce in these insects.
A person who collects or studies this order is referred to as a lepidopterist. Butterflies and moths play an important role in the natural ecosystem as pollinators and as food in the food chain. In many species, the female may produce from 200 to 600 eggs, while in others, the number may approach 30,000 eggs in one day; the caterpillars hatching from these eggs can cause damage to large quantities of crops. Many moth and butterfly species are of economic interest by virtue of their role as pollinators, the silk they produce, or as pest species; the term was coined by Linnaeus in 1735 and is derived from Greek λεπίς, gen. λεπίδος and πτερόν. Sometimes, the term Rhopalocera is used for the clade of all butterfly species, derived from the Ancient Greek ῥόπαλον and κέρας meaning "club" and "horn" coming from the shape of the antennae of butterflies; the origins of the common names "butterfly" and "moth" are varied and obscure. The English word butterfly is with many variations in spelling. Other than that, the origin is unknown, although it could be derived from the pale yellow color of many species' wings suggesting the color of butter.
The species of Heterocera are called moths. The origins of the English word moth are more clear, deriving from the Old English moððe" from Common Germanic, its origins are related to Old English maða meaning "maggot" or from the root of "midge", which until the 16th century was used to indicate the larva in reference to devouring clothes. The etymological origins of the word "caterpillar", the larval form of butterflies and moths, are from the early 16th century, from Middle English catirpel, catirpeller an alteration of Old North French catepelose: cate, cat + pelose, hairy; the Lepidoptera are among the most successful groups of insects. They are found on all continents, except Antarctica, inhabit all terrestrial habitats ranging from desert to rainforest, from lowland grasslands to mountain plateaus, but always associated with higher plants angiosperms. Among the most northern dwelling species of butterflies and moths is the Arctic Apollo, found in the Arctic Circle in northeastern Yakutia, at an altitude of 1500 m above sea level.
In the Himalayas, various Apollo species such as Parnassius epaphus have been recorded to occur up to an altitude of 6,000 m above sea level. Some lepidopteran species exhibit symbiotic, phoretic, or parasitic lifestyles, inhabiting the bodies of organisms rather than the environment. Coprophagous pyralid moth species, called sloth moths, such as Bradipodicola hahneli and Cryptoses choloepi, are unusual in that they are found inhabiting the fur of sloths, mammals found in Central and South America. Two species of Tinea moths have been recorded as feeding on horny tissue and have been bred from the horns of cattle; the larva of Zenodochium coccivorella is an internal parasite of the coccid Kermes species. Many species have been recorded as breeding in natural materials or refuse such as owl pellets, bat caves, honeycombs or diseased fruit; as of 2007, there was 174,250 lepi
Jean Théodore Lacordaire
Théodore Lacordaire or Jean Théodore Lacordaire was a Belgian entomologist of French extraction. In spite of his obvious interest in natural history, his family sent him to Le Havre to study "le droit", or the law. In 1824, he embarked for Buenos Aires, he traveled in South America using every opportunity to carry out many observations on local fauna. Georges Cuvier suggested he come to Paris in 1830. There he met Pierre André Latreille, Jean Victoire Audouin, André Marie Constant Duméril and took part in the foundation of the Société Entomologique de France, he went to Guyana at the end of 1830 to collect natural history specimens, returning to France in 1832. In 1835, he became professor of zoology at the University of Liège where he succeeded Henri-Maurice Gaède. In 1837, he became professor of comparative anatomy, he occupied himself with the collections of zoology of the natural history museum of the university from his nomination and enriched it. On his death, the natural history museum included a collection of 12,000 species, with beautiful series of ornithology and ichthyology.
From 1834 to 1838, he published Introduction à l'entomologie, comprenant les principes généraux de l'anatomie et de la physiologie des insectes, in three volumes. In 1835, he published, but his best work is Histoire naturelle des insectes, ″Genera″ des Coléoptères, an immense work of 13 volumes which his death brought to a close. This work was finished by Félicien Chapuis. In 1868, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. One of his three brothers, Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, was a Dominican priest and an important liberal Catholic polemicist. Translated from French Wikipedia Théodore Lacordaire
Click beetle
Insects in the family Elateridae are called click beetles. Other names include snapping beetles, spring beetles or skipjacks; this family was defined by William Elford Leach in 1815. They are a cosmopolitan beetle family characterized by the unusual click mechanism. There are a few related families in which a few members have the same mechanism, but all elaterids can click. A spine on the prosternum can be snapped into a corresponding notch on the mesosternum, producing a violent "click" that can bounce the beetle into the air. Clicking is used to avoid predation, although it is useful when the beetle is on its back and needs to right itself. There are about 9300 known species worldwide, 965 valid species in North America. Click beetles can be large and colorful, but most are under 2 centimeters long and dull in coloration and patterning; the adults are nocturnal and phytophagous, but of economic importance. On hot nights they are not pests. Click beetle larvae, called wireworms, are saprophagous, living on dead organisms, but some species are serious agricultural pests, others are active predators of other insect larvae.
Some elaterid species are bioluminescent in both larval and adult form, such as those of the genus Pyrophorus. Larvae are slender, cylindrical or somewhat flattened, with hard bodies, somewhat resembling mealworms; the three pairs of legs on the thoracic segments are short and the last abdominal segment is, as is the case in beetle larvae, directed downwards and may serve as a terminal proleg in some species. The ninth segment, the rearmost, is pointed in larvae of Agriotes and Melanotus, but is bifid due to a so-called caudal notch in Selatosomus, Limonius and Athous species; the dorsum of the ninth abdominal segment may have sharp processes, such as in the Oestodini, including the genera Drapetes and Oestodes. Although some species complete their development in one year, wireworms spend three or four years in the soil, feeding on decaying vegetation and the roots of plants, causing damage to agricultural crops such as potato, strawberry and wheat; the subterranean habits of wireworms, their ability to locate food by following carbon dioxide gradients produced by plant material in the soil, their remarkable ability to recover from illness induced by insecticide exposure, make it hard to exterminate them once they have begun to attack a crop.
Wireworms can pass through the soil on account of their shape and their propensity for following pre-existing burrows, can travel from plant to plant, thus injuring the roots of multiple plants within a short time. Methods for pest control include crop rotation and clearing the land of insects before sowing. Other subterranean creatures such as the leatherjacket grub of crane flies which have no legs, geophilid centipedes, which may have over two hundred, are sometimes confused with the six-legged wireworms. Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Wireworm". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press. Rines, George Edwin, ed.. "Click Beetle". Encyclopedia Americana. Media related to Elateridae at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Click beetle at Wikispecies Elateridae. Click Beetles of the Palearctic Region. On the University of Florida / Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Featured Creatures website: Click beetles, Alaus spp. Conoderus rudis Conoderus scissus Schaeffer
Jules Pierre Rambur
Jules Pierre Rambur was a French entomologist. Rambur was born in Chinon, he studied the insect fauna of Andalusia. He was the author of Histoire naturelle des insectes amongst other works, he died in Geneva. He was a Member and President of the Société entomologique de France. Catalogue des lépidoptères insectes Néuroptères de l’île de Corse Faune entomologique de l’Andalousie Histoire naturelle des insectes Catalogue systématique des Lépidoptères de l’Andalousie. With Adolphe Hercule de Graslin and Jean Baptiste Boisduval Collection iconographique et historique des chenilles. Jean Gouillard. Histoire des entomologistes français, 1750–1950. Édition entièrement revue et augmentée. Boubée: 287 p. Jean Lhoste. Les Entomologistes français. 1750–1950. INRA Éditions
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Sphingidae
The Sphingidae are a family of moths known as hawk moths, sphinx moths, hornworms. It is best represented in the tropics, they are moderate to large in size and are distinguished among moths for their rapid, sustained flying ability. Their narrow wings and streamlined abdomens are adaptations for rapid flight; the family was named by French zoologist Pierre André Latreille in 1802. Some hawk moths, such as the hummingbird hawk-moth or the white-lined sphinx, hover in midair while they feed on nectar from flowers, so are sometimes mistaken for hummingbirds; this hovering capability is only known to have evolved four times in nectar feeders: in hummingbirds, certain bats and these sphingids. Sphingids have been much studied for their flying ability their ability to move from side to side while hovering, called "swing-hovering" or "side-slipping"; this is thought to have evolved to deal with ambush predators. Sphingids are some of the faster flying insects, they have wingspans from 4 to over 10 cm.
Antennae are not feathery in the males. They lack tympanal organs, but members of the group Choerocampini have hearing organs on their heads, they have a retinaculum to join hindwings and forewings. The thorax and wings are densely covered in scales; some sphingids have a rudimentary proboscis, but most have a long one, used to feed on nectar from flowers. Most are crepuscular or nocturnal. Both males and females are long lived. Prior to flight, most species shiver their flight muscles to warm them up, during flight, body temperatures may surpass 40 °C. In some species, differences in form between the sexes is quite marked. For example, in the African species Agrius convolvuli, the antennae are thicker and wing markings more mottled in the male than in the female. Only males have both a retinaculum. All male hawk moths have a partial comb of hairs along their antennae. Females call males to them with pheromones; the male may douse the female with a pheromone before mating. Some species fly only for short periods either around dusk or dawn, while other species only appear in the evening and others around midnight, but such species may be seen feeding on flowers during the day.
A few common species in Africa, such as the Oriental bee hawk, Macroglossum hirundo, Macroglossum trochilus, are diurnal. In studies with Manduca sexta, moths have dynamic flight sensory abilities due to their antennae; the antennae are vibrated in a plane so that when the body of the moth rotates during controlled aerial maneuvers, the antennae are subject to the inertial Coriolis forces that are linearly proportional to the angular velocity of the body. The Coriolis forces cause deflections of the antennae, which are detected by the Johnston's organ at the base of each antenna, with strong frequency responses at the beat frequency of the antennae and at twice the beat frequency; the relative magnitude of the two frequency responses enables the moth to distinguish rotation around the different principal axes, allowing for rapid course control during aerial maneuvers. Most species are multivoltine, capable of producing several generations a year if weather conditions permit. Females lay translucent, flattened, smooth eggs singly on the host plants.
Egg development time varies from three to 21 days. Sphingid caterpillars are medium to large with stout bodies, they have five pairs of prolegs. Their bodies lack any hairs or tubercules, but most species have a "horn" at the posterior end, which may be reduced to a button, or absent, in the final instar. Many are cryptic greens and browns, have countershading patterns to conceal them. Others are more conspicuously colored with white spots on a black or yellow background along the length of the body. A pattern of diagonal slashes along the side is a common feature; when resting, the larva holds its legs off the surface and tucks its head underneath, resembling the Great Sphinx of Giza, gives rise to the name "sphinx moth". Some tropical larvae are thought to mimic snakes. Larvae are quick to regurgitate their sticky toxic, foregut contents on attackers such as ants and parasitoids. Development rate depends on temperature, to speed development, some northern and high-altitude species sunbathe. Larvae burrow into soil to pupate, where they remain for two to three weeks before they emerge as adults.
In some Sphingidae, the pupa has a free proboscis, rather than being fused to the pupal case as is most common in the macrolepidoptera. They have a cremaster at the tip of the abdomen, they pupate off the host plant, in an underground chamber, among rocks, or in a loose cocoon. In most species, the pupa is the overwintering stage. Sphingid larvae tend to be specific feeders, rather than generalists. Compared to sized saturniids, sphingids eat soft young leaves of host plants with small toxic molecules, chew and mash the food into small bits; some species can tolerate quite high concentrations of specific toxins. Tobacco hornworms detoxify and excrete nicotine, as do several other related sphinx moths in the subfamilies Sphinginae and Macroglossinae, but members of the Smerinthinae that were tested are susceptible; the species that are able to tolerate the toxin do not sequester it
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, is the county seat of Allegheny County. As of 2018, a population of 308,144 lives within the city limits, making it the 63rd-largest city in the U. S; the metropolitan population of 2,362,453, is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, the 26th-largest in the U. S. Pittsburgh is located in the south west of the state, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. Pittsburgh is known both as "the Steel City" for its more than 300 steel-related businesses and as the "City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges; the city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclined railways, a pre-revolutionary fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. The city developed as a vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest, as the mineral-rich Allegheny Mountains made the area coveted by the French and British empires, Whiskey Rebels, Civil War raiders. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, shipbuilding, foods, transportation, computing and electronics.
For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment. S. stockholders per capita. America's 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out; this heritage left the area with renowned museums, medical centers, research centers, a diverse cultural district. Today, Apple Inc. Bosch, Uber, Autodesk, Microsoft and IBM are among 1,600 technology firms generating $20.7 billion in annual Pittsburgh payrolls. The area has served as the long-time federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, energy research and the nuclear navy; the area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The nation's eighth-largest bank, eight Fortune 500 companies, six of the top 300 U. S. law firms make their global headquarters in the area, while RAND, BNY Mellon, FedEx, Bayer and NIOSH have regional bases that helped Pittsburgh become the sixth-best area for U.
S. job growth. In 2015, Pittsburgh was listed among the "eleven most livable cities in the world"; the region is a hub for Environmental Design and energy extraction. In 2019, Pittsburgh was deemed “Food City of the Year” by the San Francisco-based restaurant and hospitality consulting firm af&co. Many restaurants were mentioned favorable, among them were Superior Motors in Braddock, Driftwood Oven in Lawrenceville, Spork in Bloomfield, Fish nor Fowl in Garfield and Bitter Ends Garden & Luncheonette in Bloomfield. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham; as Forbes was a Scot, he pronounced the name PITS-bər-ə. Pittsburgh was incorporated as a borough on April 22, 1794, with the following Act: "Be it enacted by the Pennsylvania State Senate and Pennsylvania House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania... by the authority of the same, that the said town of Pittsburgh shall be... erected into a borough, which shall be called the borough of Pittsburgh for ever."
From 1891 to 1911, the city's name was federally recognized as "Pittsburg", though use of the final h was retained during this period by the city government and other local organizations. After a public campaign, the federal decision to drop the h was reversed; the area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee and several other settled groups of Native Americans. The first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers Dutch, followed in the early 18th century. Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers. During 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off; the French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalle's 1669 claims.
The French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne; the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddock's Field. General John Forbes took the forks in 1758. Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named "Pittsborough". During Pontiac's Rebellion, native tribes conducted a siege of Fort Pitt for two months until Colonel Henry Bouquet relieved it after the Battle of Bushy Run. Fort Pitt is notable as the site of an early use of smallpox for biological warfare. Lord Jeffery Amherst ordered blankets contaminated from smallpox victims to be distributed in 1763 to the tribes surrounding the fort; the disease spread into other areas, infected other tribes, killed hundreds of thousands. During this period, the powerful nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York, had maintained control of much of the Ohio Valley as hunting grounds by right of conquest after defeating other tribes.
By the terms of the 1768 Treaty of
France
