37
votes
Accepted
What is this strange sea creature we found on the beach?
You have a Dosima: Also known as a Buoy Barnacle. A gallery of observations of these can be found here:
https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/462188-Dosima/browse_photos
They are found in the coastal UK and ...
- 1,856
29
votes
Accepted
Do ants really find the shortest path to a food source?
Short answer
Do ants really find the shortest path to a food source?
No! But they can find a decent path
Longer answer
Optimization algorithms are used to search through a possibility space that ...
- 68k
8
votes
Accepted
Tiny white very hard cell bug! Please help to identify!
Definitely an arachnid and mite (subclass Acari), and very likely a member of the order Parasitiformes, of which there are more than 100,000 species!!
The body plan is not all too different from a ...
- 29.7k
7
votes
Accepted
What are these (eggs?) ? ( Location - India )
The group of insects called Neuropterans have several species that lay eggs on stalks. This group includes lacewings, owlflies and antlions, however stalked eggs are not a defining trait of the group. ...
- 911
7
votes
Accepted
What are these tiny, swarming, jumping bugs?
Very useful image updates! These are actually not arachnids but hexapods called springtails (order Collembola). Although springtails are often very tiny and hard to see without a lens, you happen to ...
- 29.7k
7
votes
Accepted
Is a female spider, well-fed by sexual cannibalism, less likely to mate again?
It does appear that Wikipedia has not provided the most appropriate reference for that statement, but it is repeated in the article it refers to and that you link to, both in the abstract:
Male ...
- 44k
7
votes
Accepted
Why do Centipedes always have an odd number of pairs of legs?
Centipedes are part of the group of insects that utilize a short germ-band mode of embryonic development.1 One feature of this type of segmentation is that new segments are added sequentially to the ...
- 8,256
6
votes
What insect is this?
This is a terrestrial isopod crustacean called a woodlouse (colloquially referred to as pill bugs, potato bugs, roly-pollies, sow bugs, etc.).
There are over 5000 species in the world with at least ...
- 29.7k
5
votes
Identification of an insect found near Shirdi, Maharashtra
It's a household centipede whose scientific name is Scutigera coleoptrata.
It's venom doesn't do much harm to humans.
Sources:
Picture 1 and Picture 2
- 4,786
5
votes
Accepted
Identifying this spider
It's camel spider, they have large pedipalps, big chelicerae, and their body is covered by little "hairs". As far as I know, there are only 2 families of that order in North America
- 66
5
votes
What arthropod is in the picture?
It is not a pseudoscorpion as those would have 8 legs and then the two front large pincers. This is most likely a kind a jumping spider where the two large front legs count as two of the 8 legs.
...
- 1,856
5
votes
Accepted
Identify this ladybug-like insect, with yellow eyes and cream spots
I think (without any expertise in this area, so take with a grain of salt), that this is a beetle in the genus Clinteria. This is a genus of beetles found in Asia and are relatively common.
...
- 11.2k
4
votes
Accepted
What is (probably) the closest living relative of the trilobite?
There were so many species of trilobites for 300 million years, so perhaps some trilobites species are closer to horseshoe crabs whilst others are closer to woodlice, some trilobites were amphibious ...
- 10.3k
4
votes
For which wing characteristic are Plecoptera (stoneflies) named for?
Unfortunately an incomplete answer, hopefully others can add to this or fill out the details missing.
After a bit of searching, I found the original reference:
Plecoptera was named by Burmeister in ...
- 11.2k
3
votes
is this a brown recluse spider?
No, this is not a Brown Recluse. There are several reasons for saying that, among them the fact that it's outside; it's hanging on a screen, and it doesn't look at all like a Brown Recluse - (...
- 1,063
3
votes
Accepted
What kind of Brazilian Arthropoda is this?
I was fooled by the red marks in its back, that made me believe they were each pair of marks in a segment. Looks like they're distributed in one pair of red marks for each 2 segments. Maybe that's a ...
- 1,290
3
votes
Are any arthropods poisonous to the touch?
The blister beetle genus Meloe, also known as oil beetles, secrete an oily substance containing a poison called cantharadin which causes blistering and swelling of the skin.
Source: http://...
- 2,733
3
votes
Did insects and arachnids diverge before or after moving to land?
Those are two very separate questions. Arachnids include terrestrial groups such as spiders, scorpions, and other arthropods. Arachnids are members of Chelicerata, which includes horseshoe crabs, Sea ...
- 7,637
3
votes
Accepted
3
votes
Accepted
What are these near microscopic white bugs from my comb?
Those look like they could be dust mites and are certainly some sort of mite. Dust mites are found everywhere in homes and are around 0.2 mm in length.
Dust mites image by Gilles San Martin:
...
- 5,577
3
votes
Accepted
Arthropod identification request (a spider with no legs?)
This appears to be the underside of a walnut orbweaver:
These orbweaver spiders are not medically significant.
Spiders often lose their legs in wasp attacks. Some spider wasps will remove the legs ...
- 1,856
3
votes
Accepted
What arthropod with a distinctive yellow and black colored body is this?
This appears to be a Glenea multiguttata, a beetle species found in India.
Compare: from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_and_Yellow_Longhorn_Beetle_005.JPG
- 939
3
votes
Accepted
Kansas Spider Identification, found in Pasta Package
It is a crab spider, likely of genus Xysticus but possibly genus Ozyptila. If you needed to get down to genus, bugguide (https://bugguide.net/node/view/63082) says that we can differentiate these ...
- 1,856
2
votes
How do legs of tiny insects/spiders like mosquito/Opiliones work?
Well the subject of how insects move their limbs is a bit more complicated than suggested by Kasper.
Insects do have flexors and extensors muscles to move their legs. But there are other options too.
...
- 2,916
2
votes
How do legs of tiny insects/spiders like mosquito/Opiliones work?
Arthropods use basically the same system to operate their legs. Yes their legs are tiny, but so are their muscles.(Is it so hard to imagine everything is downscaled? Their digestive system is also ...
- 92
2
votes
Accepted
Is this a saltwater millipede?
This is indeed a polychaete worm, and likely a member of the beachworm family Onuphidae.
From the Marine Education Society of Australasia :
Polychaetes are particularly common on and in muddy ...
- 29.7k
2
votes
Identifying this spider
Some spider species are easy to identify as they're relatively common and well-known or though less common, have unusual or distinctive enough markings/coloration, they won't generally be mis-...
- 1,136
2
votes
Accepted
Why are spiders afraid of flies caught in their web?
from https://www.researchgate.net/figure/234696071_fig5_Figure-1-Differences-in-attack-strategies-upon-safe-and-dangerous-prey-in-orb-web
The linked article is pretty cool. Bottom line: predators ...
- 2,964
2
votes
Accepted
ID for red millipede swarm near my place
Based on the body structure and double pair of legs per body segment, this is a millipede.
Based on the small size and spacing between body segments, it could possibly be in the Paradoxosomatidae ...
- 29.7k
2
votes
Did insects and arachnids diverge before or after moving to land?
Wikipedia appears to contain at least some part of the answers to this question, specifically here and here. Specifically, it mentions that arachnids are chelicerates, which diverged from other ...
- 313
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible