34-630: See text Anostostomatidae is a family of insects in the order Orthoptera , widely distributed in the southern hemisphere. It is named Mimnermidae or Henicidae in some taxonomies, and common names include king crickets in Australia and South Africa , and wētā in New Zealand (although not all wētā are in Anostostomatidae). Prominent members include the Parktown prawn of South Africa, and
68-579: A diet that includes snails , other invertebrates, and vegetable matter. In urban environments, they will readily take food made available by suburban dwellers, including pet food and their droppings . Libanasidus vittatus was unknown within Johannesburg before the 1960s; the first known specimen was found in Barberton in 1899 by William Forsell Kirby . They only became prevalent after 1960, when Johannesburg began to expand rapidly in size. The reason for
102-575: A healthy population of Parktown prawns are practically free of slugs and snails, so gardeners who are aware of their habits regard Parktown prawns as an effective natural means of controlling such pests. In turn the king crickets have their own natural predators, such as the hadeda ibis , fiscal shrike and helmeted guineafowl , birds at home in the urban habitat are able to deal with such large insects. Although perceptive South Africans commonly regard Parktown prawns as desirable in gardens, they can be unwelcome visitors indoors, where they are seen as pests;
136-552: A hundred species, are marine. Insects such as snow scorpionflies flourish in cold habitats including the Arctic and at high altitude. Insects such as desert locusts , ants, beetles, and termites are adapted to some of the hottest and driest environments on earth, such as the Sonoran Desert . Insects form a clade , a natural group with a common ancestor, among the arthropods . A phylogenetic analysis by Kjer et al. (2016) places
170-407: A metre high. The male insect sports a strong set of tusk-like projections on its mandibles , although the need for them is not fully explained. It is suggested that they may be used in sexual competition between males. The female has a well-developed sword-like ovipositor , through which she may lay between 80 and 200 eggs in damp or wet topsoil during the mating season. Libanasidus vittatus
204-421: A pair of antennae . Insects are the most diverse group of animals, with more than a million described species ; they represent more than half of all animal species. The insect nervous system consists of a brain and a ventral nerve cord . Most insects reproduce by laying eggs . Insects breathe air through a system of paired openings along their sides, connected to small tubes that take air directly to
238-464: A radical transformation of local flora. The Parktown prawn is one of the larger invertebrates found around Johannesburg homes. A large specimen may grow to be 6 to 7 cm (2.8 in) or more, with long whip-like antennae extending to about the same length. The exoskeleton is orange to light brown, with darker brown or black stripes across the abdomen . The conspicuous markings probably are aposematic in effect. A large specimen can jump more than
272-407: A year or more. Adult females may brood eggs and young nymphs in isolated chambers. At least one Cretaceous fossil of an anostostomatid-like cricket is known from Australia but has not been described. The modern distribution of this family in the southern hemisphere has led to speculation that members of this group owe their distribution to the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. This may be
306-453: Is omnivorous , feeding on slugs , snails , and moth larvae such as cutworms , as well as a fairly wide range of vegetable matter. They have been seen feeding on dead birds and other carrion, the food of pet dogs and cats, pet droppings, dry oatmeal , and also on fallen fruit. They have been known to chew on wooden floor boards and wooden structures such as garden furniture, though they are not equipped to digest sound wood. Gardens that have
340-407: Is a record of an Australian king cricket preying on a funnel-web spider . Anostostomatidae are nocturnal . They generally become active soon after sunset. Anostostomatidae communicate with sound, both through the air and as ground waves through soil, wood and sand. Adults of both sexes and also nymphs can produce sound. These crickets hear sound using foretibial tympana or other modifications to
374-559: Is a species of king cricket endemic to Southern Africa . It is unrelated to prawns , Libanasidus being insects in the order Orthoptera – crickets, locusts and similar insects. The king crickets are not true crickets either: they belong to the family Anostostomatidae , whereas true crickets are in the Gryllidae . The insect gets its English name from the suburb of Parktown in Johannesburg , South Africa , where they are common. It
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#1733085996917408-423: Is constrained by the inelastic exoskeleton, so development involves a series of molts . The immature stages often differ from the adults in structure, habit and habitat. Groups that undergo four-stage metamorphosis often have a nearly immobile pupa . Insects that undergo three-stage metamorphosis lack a pupa, developing through a series of increasingly adult-like nymphal stages. The higher level relationship of
442-455: Is found throughout Namibia, and in the southern savanna and semi-arid regions of Angola . The Parktown prawn is related to the New Zealand tree wētā , which is also in the family Anostostomatidae. The Parktown prawn is held in low regard by many householders, but gardeners value them for controlling garden snail populations and attracting the hadeda ibis . The animal is omnivorous , with
476-430: Is the Parktown prawn , not to be confused with the well-known Koringkrieke or armoured ground crickets , which never have been in the family Anostostomatidae. Henicus monstrosus is a nocturnal anostostomatid. The males are unusual in their anatomy; their heads are disproportionately large and bear forward-directed prongs. They have extremely long, curved mandibles that are functional, but seem to play no part in
510-830: The Latin word insectum from in , "cut up", as insects appear to be cut into three parts. The Latin word was introduced by Pliny the Elder who calqued the Ancient Greek word ἔντομον éntomon "insect" (as in entomology ) from ἔντομος éntomos "cut in pieces"; this was Aristotle 's term for this class of life in his biology , also in reference to their notched bodies. The English word insect first appears in 1601 in Philemon Holland 's translation of Pliny. In common speech, insects and other terrestrial arthropods are often called bugs . Entomologists to some extent reserve
544-2290: The Paraneoptera , and Kjer et al. 2016 for the Holometabola . The numbers of described extant species (boldface for groups with over 100,000 species) are from Stork 2018. Archaeognatha (hump-backed/jumping bristletails, 513 spp) [REDACTED] Zygentoma (silverfish, firebrats, fishmoths, 560 spp) [REDACTED] Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies, 5,899 spp) [REDACTED] Ephemeroptera (mayflies, 3,240 spp) [REDACTED] Zoraptera (angel insects, 37 spp) [REDACTED] Dermaptera (earwigs, 1,978 spp) [REDACTED] Plecoptera (stoneflies, 3,743 spp) [REDACTED] Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, 23,855 spp) [REDACTED] Grylloblattodea (ice crawlers, 34 spp) [REDACTED] Mantophasmatodea (gladiators, 15 spp) [REDACTED] Phasmatodea (stick insects, 3,014 spp) [REDACTED] Embioptera (webspinners, 463 spp) [REDACTED] Mantodea (mantises, 2,400 spp) [REDACTED] Blattodea (cockroaches and termites, 7,314 spp) [REDACTED] Psocodea (book lice, barklice and sucking lice, 11,000 spp) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Hemiptera (true bugs, 103,590 spp) [REDACTED] Thysanoptera (thrips, 5,864 spp) [REDACTED] Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, bees, ants, 116,861 spp) [REDACTED] Strepsiptera (twisted-wing flies, 609 spp) [REDACTED] Coleoptera (beetles, 386,500 spp) [REDACTED] Raphidioptera (snakeflies, 254 spp) [REDACTED] Neuroptera (lacewings, 5,868 spp) [REDACTED] Megaloptera (alderflies and dobsonflies, 354 spp) [REDACTED] Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths, 157,338 spp) [REDACTED] Trichoptera (caddisflies, 14,391 spp) [REDACTED] Diptera (true flies, 155,477 spp) [REDACTED] Mecoptera (scorpionflies, 757 spp) [REDACTED] Siphonaptera (fleas, 2,075 spp) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Parktown prawn The Parktown prawn , African king cricket or tusked king cricket ( Libanasidus vittatus )
578-897: The giant wētā of New Zealand. Some members of this family can be quite large: Parktown prawn can exceed 6 cm and tree weta can exceed 8 cm in length. Some Australian and Asian anostostomatids have wings (e.g. Exogryllacris , Gryllotaurus , Transaevum ), while most lack wings (e.g. Anostostoma , Hemiandrus , Hypocophoides , Penalva ). Males of some species have highly modified heads, which they use in male-male conflicts. The wetas of New Zealand, such as Hemideina , are mostly herbivores that feed on leaves, fruit and flowers, but may also scavenge recently killed invertebrates. The king crickets of Australia include generalised scavengers that consume various dead and decaying matter, specialised feeders (e.g. Exogryllacris feeds on fungal fruiting bodies growing on fallen trees) and predators of other invertebrates. There
612-616: The insects is unclear. Fossilized insects of enormous size have been found from the Paleozoic Era, including giant dragonfly-like insects with wingspans of 55 to 70 cm (22 to 28 in). The most diverse insect groups appear to have coevolved with flowering plants . Adult insects typically move about by walking and flying; some can swim. Insects are the only invertebrates that can achieve sustained powered flight; insect flight evolved just once. Many insects are at least partly aquatic , and have larvae with gills; in some species,
646-483: The pheromones of female moths over great distances. Other species communicate with sounds: crickets stridulate , or rub their wings together, to attract a mate and repel other males. Lampyrid beetles communicate with light. Humans regard many insects as pests , especially those that damage crops, and attempt to control them using insecticides and other techniques. Others are parasitic , and may act as vectors of diseases . Insect pollinators are essential to
680-618: The Hemiptera (true bugs), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Diptera (true flies), Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees), and Coleoptera (beetles), each with more than 100,000 described species. Insects are distributed over every continent and almost every terrestrial habitat. There are many more species in the tropics , especially in rainforests , than in temperate zones. The world's regions have received widely differing amounts of attention from entomologists. The British Isles have been thoroughly surveyed, so that Gullan and Cranston 2014 state that
714-726: The Johannesburg newspaper The Star , claims that the Parktown prawn was the result of a genetic experiment by students from the University of the Witwatersrand in the 1960s (thus explaining the insects' sudden arrival in Johannesburg at that time). The insect's unusual size, strength and vivid orange colouring are presented as confirmation of the idea. The Parktown prawn has found its way into South African popular culture. Andrew Buckland 's 1988 play The Ugly Noo Noo used Parktown prawns as part of an extended parody of South African politics of
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#1733085996917748-404: The adults too are aquatic. Some species, such as water striders , can walk on the surface of water. Insects are mostly solitary, but some, such as bees , ants and termites , are social and live in large, well-organized colonies . Others, such as earwigs , provide maternal care, guarding their eggs and young. Insects can communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Male moths can sense
782-876: The case but evidence for the large scale if not total submergence of continental crust in the New Zealand and New Caledonian region in the Oligocene, indicates the possibility that wētā have arrived in these locations since re-emergence of land. The fact that anostostomatid crickets also occur on some Japanese islands supports this possibility. The Orthoptera Species File lists the following; Auth.: Rentz & Weissman, 1973 – Americas, Africa, India, E. Asia, Australasia Auth.: Saussure, 1859 – Africa (including Madagascar), Australia, New Zealand Auth.: Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1888 – South America Auth.: Karny, 1932 – New Zealand Auth.: Gorochov, 2011 – S. America Auth.: Karny, 1932 – N. Africa, Middle East Auth.: Gorochov, 1988 – Central & S. America, Africa, PNG The best-known species
816-546: The day to avoid diurnal predators. If disturbed by a predator, they may jump away, stridulate, eject putrid-smelling faeces, bite, fly away (done by winged Exogryllacris and Gryllotaurus ) or jump into water (done by Transaevum nymphs, which feed on streamsides). Like other orthopterans, Anostostomatidae go through the three stages of egg, nymph and adult. Life cycles in this family are often long, with egg development taking up to 18 months, nymphal development taking 1–3 years and involving 7-10 instars , and adults living for
850-554: The eating process. Five genera of New Zealand wētā are part of the family Anostostomatidae: The cave wētā species belong to a different family, the Rhaphidophoridae . Insect Insects (from Latin insectum ) are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta . They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum . Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton , a three-part body ( head , thorax and abdomen ), three pairs of jointed legs , compound eyes , and
884-613: The increase in the insect's numbers is unclear, although they have done much better in an urban environment than in the wild, and it has been suggested that some ecological controlling factor is absent in its suburban habitat. Johannesburg is on the South African highveld and has a dry climate, unsuitable habitat for the Parktown prawn. With the arrival of suburban dwellers, irrigated gardens provided lush, forest-like conditions, an environment more suited to king crickets. Certain suburbs in Johannesburg are very green and leafy, and represent
918-592: The insects among the Hexapoda , six-legged animals with segmented bodies; their closest relatives are the Diplura (bristletails). Collembola (springtails) [REDACTED] Protura (coneheads) [REDACTED] Diplura (two-pronged bristletails) [REDACTED] Insecta (=Ectognatha) [REDACTED] The internal phylogeny is based on the works of Wipfler et al. 2019 for the Polyneoptera , Johnson et al. 2018 for
952-469: The insects can jump actively and often eject offensive black faecal liquids when threatened. Accordingly, they frighten nervous persons and they may chew carpets and fabrics. They most often emerge into the open after rain during summer, which also is when they are likeliest to be found indoors. Commonly they are most active at night. They have also been called "crickets from hell". A popular urban legend, propagated by April Fools' Day articles published by
986-402: The name "bugs" for a narrow category of " true bugs ", insects of the order Hemiptera , such as cicadas and shield bugs . Other terrestrial arthropods, such as centipedes , millipedes , woodlice , spiders , mites and scorpions , are sometimes confused with insects, since they have a jointed exoskeleton. Adult insects are the only arthropods that ever have wings, with up to two pairs on
1020-535: The reproduction of many flowering plants and so to their ecosystems. Many insects are ecologically beneficial as predators of pest insects, while a few provide direct economic benefit. Two species in particular are economically important and were domesticated many centuries ago: silkworms for silk and honey bees for honey . Insects are consumed as food in 80% of the world's nations, by people in roughly 3000 ethnic groups. Human activities are having serious effects on insect biodiversity . The word insect comes from
1054-527: The thorax. Whether winged or not, adult insects can be distinguished by their three-part body plan, with head, thorax, and abdomen; they have three pairs of legs on the thorax. Estimates of the total number of insect species vary considerably, suggesting that there are perhaps some 5.5 million insect species in existence, of which about one million have been described and named. These constitute around half of all eukaryote species, including animals , plants , and fungi . The most diverse insect orders are
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1088-439: The tibiae, tarsi and perhaps prothorax . As one example, Anostostoma can stridulate by rubbing its abdomen against its hind legs. The sides of the base of the abdomen have dense patches of short, sharp pegs, and there are similar pegs on the inner surfaces of the hind femurs. Sound is produced by these pegs rubbing together. Anostostomatidae use various behaviours to defend against predators . Many hide in burrows during
1122-466: The tissues. The blood therefore does not carry oxygen; it is only partly contained in vessels, and some circulates in an open hemocoel . Insect vision is mainly through their compound eyes , with additional small ocelli . Many insects can hear, using tympanal organs , which may be on the legs or other parts of the body. Their sense of smell is via receptors, usually on the antennae and the mouthparts. Nearly all insects hatch from eggs . Insect growth
1156-518: The total of around 22,500 species is probably within 5% of the actual number there; they comment that Canada's list of 30,000 described species is surely over half of the actual total. They add that the 3000 species of the American Arctic must be broadly accurate. In contrast, a large majority of the insect species of the tropics and the southern hemisphere are probably undescribed. Some 30–40,000 species inhabit freshwater ; very few insects, perhaps
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