pupae

Notes & illustrations on the Japanese beetle Popillia japonica study sheet showing life stages and damage

Study sheet on Japanese beetle Popillia japonica showing adult, life cycle, and variety of damage caused by this pest

Adult Japanese beetle Popillia japonica with distinctive abdominal white tufts

Japanese beetle Popillia japonica adult and life stages, with egg, grub or larva, and pupa

Anopheles gambiae African Malaria mosquito unfed female, posing in typical diagonal position

Larva of Anopheles gambiae Malaria mosquito showing typical position, parallel to the water surface

Pupa of Anopheles mosquito based on Anopheles gambiae at water surface

Feeding African Malaria Mosquito Anopheles gambiae showing stylets as she feeds, and swollen belly with tergites forced apart and excess liquid excreted during feeding

African Malaria Mosquito Life cycle Anopheles gambiae

Wood ant nest.  This nest belongs to the Southern red wood ant, Formica rufa.  Wood ant nests do differ between species, although it can be hard to tell them apart.

Nest and budded smaller nest of wood ant.  This budding often happens with wood ant species.

Social parasitism in ants. The queen of the Slave maker ant, Formica sanguinea, being tended to by workers of Dusky ant Formica fusca.

Worker ant F. aquilonia Scottish wood ant, in profile.  Workers are all haplodiploid, sharing much of their genetic material with their mother, the queen. This supports their eusocial colonies.

Male wood ant F. lugubris Hairy wood ant.  These males have dark bodies and yellow legs and genitals.  Like the females, they have wings.  Unlike the females, shortly after mating during the nuptial flight, they will die.

Queen ant F. aquilonia Scottish wood ant with wings.  Newly emerged queens have wings, and following their mating and nuptial flight, they bite these off.  This enables them to burrow underground and set up a new ant nest and colony, and to begin laying eggs and raising young.

Pupae of a wood ant, both within its cocoon, and extracted.  Detail from a life cycle ant illustration by Lizzie Harper natural history and sciart illustrator

Larvae of wood ant showing their translucent bodies and segmentation.

Illustration of several eggs of a wood ant.