. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. THE most brilliant of insects. Tlie number of known species is hard to estimate, but it is probalil)- not less than 18,000. From the descriptions of palaeontologists it would appear tliat the Rhynchota are of great ttutiquity in the liistory of the world. Three species have been recorded from the Carboniferous formation, two of them being regarded as most nearly resembling the Fulgoi-idse, or Lantern Flies. The Lias of SehamV)elen has furnished Prof. Heer with several fossil .species belonging to this order, and repr
. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. THE most brilliant of insects. Tlie number of known species is hard to estimate, but it is probalil)- not less than 18,000. From the descriptions of palaeontologists it would appear tliat the Rhynchota are of great ttutiquity in the liistory of the world. Three species have been recorded from the Carboniferous formation, two of them being regarded as most nearly resembling the Fulgoi-idse, or Lantern Flies. The Lias of SehamV)elen has furnished Prof. Heer with several fossil .species belonging to this order, and representing both the principal groups into which the typical forms are divided ; while the rich deposits of Solenhofen (Upper Oolite) contain a still larger number of species, some of them of considerable size. In England also the Lower Lias has furnished remains of Rhynchota, but none seem to have occurred in the Stonesfield Slate, or elsewhere in the English Oolites, until we come to the uppermost or Purbeck beds, in which such insects are tolerably numerous, and represent several existing families. It is as usual in the Tertiary beds that the traces of this order become most numerous, and in the deposits of Q5ningen and Radoboj, so admirably worked out by Prof. Heer, the majority of the existing families are represented by more or less well-preserved examples. The parasitic Pediculidas (the Sucking Lice), which we place as degraded forms of this order, differ from the rest in so many important characters, but especially in the soft, fleshy, and retractile nature of their rostrum and the complete al)sence of wings, that we may fairly regard them as constituting a distinct sub-order, for which the name of Pediculina can be adopted. The remainder, or the typical Rhynchota, with very few exceptions, all possess the jointed rostrum above described as generally characteristic of the order, and in the exceptional cases this organ is altogether suppi-essed and not transformed into a fl
Size: 1865px × 1340px
Photo credit: © Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectanimals
