scale insects
awild | April 30, 2008
Crypticerya bursera Unruh 2008
Baja California
Cory Unruh describes a new species of scale insect in the genus Crypticerya in this week's Zootaxa. The diagram above shows a highly stylized version of the back (at left) and underbelly (at right) of the insect, with peripheral illustrations of the various pores, appendages and hairs. Scale insects have such an unusual morphology that the people who work on them have had to create a unique system for keeping track of their various characters. Most entomologists- myself included- require additional training to make sense of it.
Like all scale…