Thursday, September 13, 2007

"Ugly Bugs" (?)

Some images from the UglyBug contest website I mentioned in class.

Look at this "Assassin Bug" on the left. A nice "opistognathous" mouth with that pierces & sucks. What other insect is it similar to the we saw last week? Either way, I'd hate to be assassinated by that thing...(ouch).

The Tiger beetle, on the other hand (to the right, below) has classically mandibulate mouthparts. The small eye-looking thing above the jaws on the left is actually were the antenna was - the eye (very big) is above that. These guys are also know to be voracious predators, the mouthparts, as you can see, pretty fierce and complex. This one was collected by a kid a Grantie Elementary School , in Granite Oklahoma (FYI).


One a different note, look at the crazy antennae on this
"June Bug" - which is actually a beetle (below).

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