Biology (and other Life Sciences)

INSTRUCTIONS (follow them!) Your paper must be in your own words, typed, with double-spaced lines, a font size of 12 and font style of Helvetica, and 1-inch margins for top, bottom, and sides. Use only one sheet of paper for this assignment. You can print on the front and back of the same sheet of paper. Again, your writing must be your own. Do not copy big pieces of text from the internet or other sources - if you do and I detect it, you will get a zero on this assignment. There is no need to include references for where your information came from, so don't do this on this assignment. Type your name (as it is written on the role sheet in SOLAR) at the top of the paper and put your signature next to this. A handy website to help you get started is: http://www.itis.gov also www.tropicos.org is quite good for plants Below is an example based on my name. This took me less than two hours. You certainly can do this, and much better, without too much more effort. My name: J H (signature would go here) Species: Jadera haematoloma (Herrich-Schaeffer, 1847) basionym: Leptocoris haematoloma Herrich Schaeffer, 1847 Common names: Red-shouldered Bug, Jadera Bug, Soapberry Bug Classification: Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Hemiptera, Family Rhopalidae. The author of this species was Gottleib August Wilhelm Herrich-Schäffer (also written as Herrich-Schaeffer), a German entomologist and physician who lived from 1799-1874. Although he primarily worked on butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera), he did some significant work on other groups of insects (such as the order Hemiptera discussed here). He was also a botanist. This insect has long, sucking mouthparts that it uses to feed on fluids from plants. Its body is elongate, with a relatively pointed head, angular prothorax, a somewhat dorso-ventrally flattened body, and the adults are winged. It is usually 9.5-13.5 mm long and mostly black with red eyes, lateral margins of the pronotum, costal margins of the wings, and dorsum of the abdomen. They feed on fluids in developing seeds within the fruits of plants in the family Sapindaceae and close relatives of this family. They are preyed upon by carnivorous vertebrates such as lizards and birds and by carnivorous arthropods such as spiders. This species is found in a variety of habitats, including urbanized areas, where their host plants live throughout much of the United States and into Central America, the West Indies, and into northwestern South America. Jadera haematoloma is found locally in the Los Angeles area. We talked about these already in class when we were discussing observable examples of natural selection. Populations of these insects vary in the length of their mouthparts in response to the size of the fruits they feed upon. Local (southern California) related species: Jadera haematoloma is found locally in the Los Angeles area. A close relative that also lives here is the Western Boxelder Bug, Boisea rubrolineata (Barber, 1956). This is also in the family Rhopalidae.