aphidi-, aphid-, aphis +

(Latin: a plant louse; a plant sucking insect)


aphid, plant louse
1. Any of various small, soft-bodied insects of the family Aphididae that have mouth parts especially adapted for piercing and feeding by sucking sap from plants.
2. Numerous tiny soft-bodied insects of the family Aphididae of worldwide distribution, that suck the sap from the stems and leaves of various plants, some developing wings when overcrowding occurs.

An important pest of many fruit trees and vegetable crops.

aphidian
A reference to an aphid.
aphidicide, aphicide
The killing of aphids.
aphidicole, aphidicolous
Living among aggregations of aphids.
Aphididae
Aphids, blackflies, greenflies; family of over 3,500 species of pear-shaped, soft-bodied insects (Homoptera) which move slowly over their host plants sucking juices and injecting toxic saliva; typically excreting honeydew or secreting wax for protection.

Life cycles are complex, commonly involving both parthenogenetic and bisexual reproduction and this Aphididae family includes many pests causing destruction of agricultural plants.

aphidivorous, aphidivore, aphidivory
Feeding on, or devouring, aphids.
aphidophagous
Feeding upon aphides, or plant lice, as do beetles of the family Coccinellidae.
aphis
1. In zoology, the puceron, vine fretter, or plant-louse; a genus of insects, belonging to the order of hemipters.

The aphis is furnished with an inflected beak, and with feelers longer than the thorax. In the same species, some individuals have four erect wings, and others are entirely without wings.

The feet are of the ambulatory kind, and the belly usually ends in two horns, from which is ejected the substance called honey-dew. The species are very numerous.

2. A genus of insects belonging to the order Hemiptera and family Aphidae, including numerous species known as plant lice and green flies.

Besides the true males and females, there is a race of wingless asexual individuals which have the power of producing living young in rapid succession, and these in turn may produce others of the same kind for several generations, before sexual individuals appear.

They suck the sap of plants by means of a tubular proboscis, and owing to the wonderful rapidity of their reproduction become very destructive to vegetation. Many of the Aphidae excrete honeydew from two tubes near the end of the body.


A cross reference of other word family units that are related directly, or indirectly, with: "insects, bugs, worms; invertebrates": api-; ascari-; culci-; Dung Beetle Survival; Dung Beetles Important; Eating Worms; entomo-; formic-; Guinea worms; helmintho-; insecto-; Insects: Importance; isopter-; larvi-; lepidopter-; meliss-; mosquito; Mosquito, other Languages; Mosquitoes, Pt. 1; Mosquitoes, Pt. 2; myrmeco-; scarab; scoleco-; sphec-; taeni-; termit-; vermo-.


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