1.
Mosquito
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Mosquitoes are small, midge-like flies that constitute the family Culicidae. Females of most species are ectoparasites, whose tube-like mouthparts pierce the skin to consume blood. The word mosquito is Spanish for little fly, thousands of species feed on the blood of various kinds of hosts, mainly vertebrates, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even some kinds of fish. Some mosquitoes also attack invertebrates, mainly other arthropods, though the loss of blood is seldom of any importance to the victim, the saliva of the mosquito often causes an irritating rash that is a serious nuisance. Much more serious though, are the roles of species of mosquitoes as vectors of diseases. The oldest known mosquito with a similar to modern species was found in 79-million-year-old Canadian amber from the Cretaceous. An older sister species with more primitive features was found in Burmese amber that is 90 to 100 million years old, two mosquito fossils have been found that show very little morphological change in modern mosquitoes against their counterpart from 46 million years ago. These fossils are also the oldest ever found to have blood preserved within their abdomens, the Old and New World Anopheles species are believed to have subsequently diverged about 95 million years ago. The mosquito Anopheles gambiae is currently undergoing speciation into the M and S molecular forms, consequently, some pesticides that work on the M form no longer work on the S form. Over 3,500 species of the Culicidae have already been described and they are generally divided into two subfamilies which in turn comprise some 43 genera. These figures are subject to change, as more species are discovered. The two main subfamilies are the Anophelinae and Culicinae, with their genera as shown in the subsection below, the distinction is of great practical importance because the two subfamilies tend to differ in their significance as vectors of different classes of diseases. Roughly speaking, arboviral diseases such as fever and dengue fever tend to be transmitted by Culicine species. Some transmit various species of malaria, but it is not clear that they ever transmit any form of human malaria. Some species do however transmit various forms of filariasis, much as many Simuliidae do, Anopheline mosquitoes, again not necessarily in the genus Anopheles, sometimes bear pathogenic arboviruses, but it is not yet clear that they ever transmit them as effective vectors. However, all the most important vectors of malaria are Anopheline. Anophelinae Culicinae Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies, superficially, mosquitoes resemble crane flies and chironomid flies. In particular, the females of species of mosquitoes are blood-eating pests and dangerous vectors of diseases
2.
Hematophagy
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Hematophagy is the practice by certain animals of feeding on blood. Some intestinal nematodes, such as Ancylostomids, feed on blood extracted from the capillaries of the gut, and about 75 percent of all species of leeches, a free-living worm, are hematophagous. These hematophagous animals have mouth parts and chemical agents for penetrating vascular structures in the skin of hosts, mostly of mammals, birds and this type of feeding is known as phlebotomy. Once phlebotomy is performed, blood is acquired either by sucking action directly from the veins or capillaries, from a pool of escaped blood, scientists have developed anticoagulant medicines from studying substances in the saliva of several hematophagous species, such as leeches. Hematophagy is classified as either obligatory or facultative, obligatory hematophagous animals cant survive on any other food. Examples include Rhodnius prolixus, a South American assassin bug, and Cimex lectularius, facultative hematophages, meanwhile, acquire at least some portion of their nutrition from non-blood sources in at least one of the sexually mature forms. Examples of this include many species, such as Aedes aegypti, whose males feed on pollen. In anautogenous species, the female must consume blood in order to produce eggs, as a feeding practice, hematophagy has evolved independently in a number of arthropod, annelid, nematode and mammalian taxa. For example, Diptera have eleven families with hematophagous habits, about 14,000 species of arthropods are hematophagous, even including some genera that were not previously thought to be, such as moths of the genus Calyptra. Several complementary biological adaptations for locating the hosts have also evolved, such as physical or chemical detectors for sweat components, CO2, heat, light, movement. The phlebotomic action opens a channel for contamination of the host species with bacteria, viruses, louis encephalitis, tularemia, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, West Nile fever, Zika fever, and many others. Hematophagous organisms have been used by physicians for beneficial purposes, some doctors now use leeches to prevent the clotting of blood on some wounds following surgery or trauma. The anticoagulants in the laboratory-raised leeches saliva keeps fresh blood flowing to the site of an injury, actually preventing infection, in a recent study a genetically engineered drug called desmoteplase based on the saliva of Desmodus rotundus was shown to improve recovery in stroke patients. Many human societies also drink blood or use it to manufacture foodstuffs, cow blood mixed with milk, for example, is a mainstay food of the African Maasai. Marco Polo reported that Mongols drank blood from their horses if necessary, many places around the world eat Black pudding. Some societies, such as the Moche, had ritual hematophagy, as well as the Scythians, a people of Russia. Some religious rituals and symbols seemingly mirror hematophagy, such as in the transubstantiation of wine as the blood of Jesus Christ during Christian eucharist, psychiatric cases of patients performing hematophagy also exist. Sucking or licking ones own blood from a wound is also a human behavior
3.
Rosy boa
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The rosy boa is a species of snake of the family Boidae. The rosy boa is one of two members of that family native to the United States, the other being the rubber boa. The rosy boa is native to the American Southwest, and adjacent Baja California and Sonora and these small, attractive snakes normally attain a length of 17–34 in, although some coastal specimens from California reach 36–44 in. A large adult has a width about the diameter of a golf ball. Coloration in rosy boas is highly variable, and usually locale-specific, the common name is derived from the rosy or salmon coloration that is common on the belly of rosy boas originating from coastal southern California and Baja Mexico. Most rosy boas do not have this coloration, but instead have a series of dark to orange spots on a light-colored background. Almost all rosy boas have at least some trace of three stripes, one down the center of the back, and two on the lower sides. The appearance of stripes varies widely, from extremely straight and having high contrast with the interspaces. Stripe colors can be orange, maroon, rust, brown, interspace colors can be shades of light to dark gray, yellow, or tan. The rosy boa is found in the southwestern United States in the states of California and Arizona, in California, the rosy boa ranges throughout the Colorado and Mojave Deserts and also occupies the coastal areas of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego Counties. In Arizona, the rosy boa occupies the Mojave Desert and the areas of the Sonoran Desert. It is absent from the eastern and northern halves of the state, in Sonora, the rosy boa ranges from the border with the United States south throughout the Sonoran Desert to at least as far south as Ortiz. In Baja California, the rosy boa is almost ubiquitous ranging throughout the peninsula except in areas of extremely dry or rockless desert. Rosy boas spend most of their lives concealed beneath rocks and in crevices to escape the elements, granite outcroppings are the most common geologic association inhabited by the rosy boa. Less often, they are found in association with volcanic or other rock types, only in rare places do rosy boas inhabit rockless environments. In areas with few rocks, rosy boas use rodent burrows for concealment, rosy boas activity season follows local weather patterns, however, they are generally dormant during the winter, and active during the spring, summer, and fall. Like all snakes, they are dependent on external temperatures to promote such normal bodily functions as digestion and gestation, throughout most of their range, the winter is too cold for these functions and the rosy boas go into a dormant state called brumation. The spring is breeding season, resulting in their highest rate of activity, most rosy boas are encountered in spring as they leave the security of their rock piles and crevices to seek mates
4.
Red kangaroo
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The red kangaroo is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the largest extant marsupial. It is found across mainland Australia, avoiding only the fertile areas in the south, the east coast. This species is a large kangaroo with long, pointed ears. Males have short, red-brown fur, fading to buff below. Females are smaller males and are blue-grey with a brown tinge, pale gray below. It has two forelimbs with small claws, two muscular hind-limbs, which are used for jumping, and a tail which is often used to create a tripod when standing upright. Females are considerably smaller, with a length of 85–105 cm. Females can weigh from 18 to 40 kg, while males weigh around twice as much at 55 to 90 kg. The average red kangaroo stands approximately 1.5 m tall to the top of the head in upright posture, large mature males can stand more than 1.8 m tall, with the largest confirmed one having been around 2.1 m tall and weighed 91 kg. The red kangaroo maintains its internal temperature at a point of homeostasis about 36 °C using a variety of physical, physiological, and behavioral adaptations. These include having a layer of fur, being less active and staying in the shade when temperatures are high, panting, sweating. The red kangaroos range of vision is approximately 300°, due to the position of its eyes, the red kangaroo ranges throughout western and central Australia. Its range encompasses scrubland, grassland, and desert habitats and it typically inhabits open habitats with some trees for shade. Red kangaroos are capable of conserving water and selecting enough fresh vegetation to survive in an arid environment. The kangaroo’s kidneys efficiently concentrate urine, particularly during summer, red kangaroo primarily eat green vegetation, particularly fresh grasses and forbs, and can get enough even when most plants look brown and dry. One study of kangaroos in Central Australia found that green grass makes up 75–95% of the diet and this grass continues to be green into the dry season. Kangaroos also primarily consumed this species, along with Enneapogon avanaceus, during dry times, kangaroos search for green plants by staying on open grassland and near watercourses. However, some perennial chenopods, such as round-leaf chenopod Kochia are avoided even when abundant, at times, red kangaroos congregate in large numbers, in areas with much forage, these groups can number as much as 1,500 individuals
5.
Asilidae
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The Asilidae are the robber fly family, also called assassin flies. They are powerfully built, bristly flies with a short, stout proboscis enclosing the sharp, the name robber flies reflects their notoriously aggressive predatory habits, they feed mainly or exclusively on other insects and as a rule they wait in ambush and catch their prey in flight. The Asilidae are a family in the order Diptera, the true flies, the common name for members of the family is the robber flies. The Asilidae are cosmopolitan, with over 7000 described species, latreille was the authority for establishing the family in 1802. Robber flies have stout, spiny legs and they have three eyes in a characteristic depression on the top of their head between their two large compound eyes. They also have a dense moustache of stiff bristles on the face, this is called the mystax. Some Asilidae do, however, specialize in smaller prey, and they do so apparently irrespective of any repugnatorial chemicals the prey may have at its disposal. Many Asilidae when attacked in turn do not hesitate to defend themselves with their proboscides, the antennae are short, have three segments, and sometimes bear a bristle-like structure called an arista. Though they are a characteristic group for such a large family. Some points of contrast between the families include that the labium in the Therevidae is not a piercing, predatory organ, again, the Therevidae commonly have fluffy setae above the mouthparts, unlike the stiff chaetae comprising the mystax of the Asilidae. Furthermore, in the Asilidae the depression on the vertex between the eyes, tends to be obvious than in the Therevidae. Many Asilidae have long, tapering abdomens, sometimes with a sword-like ovipositor, others, for instance Laphria are fat-bodied bumblebee mimics. The life histories are poorly known, larvae generally seem to live in soil, rotting wood, leaf mold and similar materials, some being predatory and others detrivorous. Adults are generally medium to large in size, with a body length of 1 to 1.5 cm. The shape is elongated, due to the conformation of the long tapering abdomen. Frequently they are aposematic, imitating the livery of Hymenoptera, the head is free and mobile and dichoptic in both sexes and has three ocelli arranged in a characteristic depression formed by the elevation of the compound eyes. This feature is clearly visible in the front view and is a peculiarity of Asilidae. The occipital region has one or more rows of bristles aligned behind the posterior margin of the eye, the facial region has a convex profile with a characteristic dense bundle of bristles, called a mystax
6.
Insectivore
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An insectivore is a carnivorous plant or animal that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which refers to the human practice of eating insects. The first insectivorous vertebrates were amphibians, when they evolved 400 million years ago, the first amphibians were piscivores, with numerous sharp conical teeth, much like a modern crocodile. The same tooth arrangement is also suited for eating animals with exoskeletons. At one time, insectivorous mammals were classified in an order called Insectivora. This order is now abandoned, as not all mammals are closely related. Most of the Insectivora taxa have been reclassified, those that have not yet been reclassified remain in the order Eulipotyphla, although individually small, insects exist in enormous numbers - they number over a million described species and some of those species occur in enormous numbers. Accordingly, insects make up a large part of the animal biomass in almost all non-marine. It has been estimated that the insect biomass is in the region of 1012 kg with an estimated population of 1018 organisms. Many creatures depend on insects as their diet, and many that do not nevertheless use insects as a protein supplement. Even large mammals are recorded as eating insects, the bear is perhaps the largest insectivore. Insects also can be insectivores, examples are dragonflies, hornets, ladybugs, insectivory also features to various degrees amongst primates, such as marmosets, tamarins, tarsiers, galagos and aye-aye. There is some suggestion that the earliest primates were nocturnal, arboreal insectivores, insectivorous plants are plants that derive some of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoan. The benefit they derive from their catch varies considerably, in some species it might include a part of their nutrient intake. Their prey animals typically, but not exclusively, comprise insects, also known as carnivorous plants, they appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs and rock outcroppings. Insectivorous plants include the Venus flytrap, several types of plants, butterworts, sundews, bladderworts. Most of those that do have such a diet, such as certain parasitoids and hunting wasps, are specialised to exploit particular species. Indeed, much as large mantids and spiders will do, the varieties of pitcher plant have been known to consume vertebrates such as small rodents
