Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- An order of the class Insecta proposed by Olivier in 1789 for certain straight-winged insects which Linnæus had placed in Hemiptera, and to which De Geer in 1773 had restricted the order Hemiptera, placing the true bugs in a new order Dermaptera. The order as now understood contains insects in which metamorphosis is incomplete and wings are almost always present, of which the hinder pair are dilated, folded from the base, and of membranous texture, while the fore pair are more or less coriaceous, usually narrow and straight (but variable in this respect), and thickly veined. These insects are active and capable of feeding in all stages from birth to death. Seven families — or, as some consider, tribes or supcrfamilies — are now recognized. These are the Blattidæ, or cockroaches; Mantidæ, or praying-insects; Phasmidæ, or walking-sticks; Gryllidæ, or crickets; Locustidæ, or long-horned grasshoppers or katydids; and Acrididæ, or short-horned grasshoppers or true locusts, including the migratory species. (See
locust for an explanation of the fact that the Locustidæ are not locusts.) The Orthoptera are in the main herbivorous, but the Mantidæ are carnivorous, and some of the Blattidæ are omnivorous. They are found all over the world, but most numerously in the tropics, where among them are the largest known representatives of the whole insect class. All the known species are terrestrial or arboreal, no aquatic forms having been discovered; and according to their habitual mode of progression the families have been grouped by Westwood as Cursoria, Raptoria, Ambulatoria, and Suliatoria. The Orthoptera are among the earliest forms of insect life to appear in geologic time, and the Blattidæ in particular are very numerous in some geological formations. The main characters used in classifying the Orthoptera are derived from the modifications of the genitals, mouth-parts, and antennæ. See cuts under Blattidæ, Gryllidæ, Insecta, katydid, locust, and Mantis.
Wiktionary
- n. A taxonomic order within the subdivision Polyneoptera — various insects including the cockroach, cricket, grasshopper, stick insect, etc..
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) An order of mandibulate insects including grasshoppers, locusts, cockroaches, mantids, crickets, katydids, etc. See
Illust. under insect.
WordNet 3.0
- n. grasshoppers and locusts; crickets.
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós, "straight") + πτερά (pterá, "wings"), plural of πτερόν (pterón, "wing") (Wiktionary)
Examples
“incomplete metamorphosis" of the Orthoptera is the primitive one,”
“The goal of a larva is to be ingested by an adult insect such as Orthoptera (e.g. grasshopper) and Coleoptera (e.g. giant water beetle).”
“All of the seven species of stonefly are endemic and there are endemic genera of wetas (Orthoptera).”
“Lichen mimic grasshopper (Orthoptera sp.) of the western Andes (at 1000m), Ecuador.”
“The biodiversity of the tugai ecosystem is very rich with representative invertebrates, particularly within the insect orders Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, semi-Coleoptera, and Orthoptera.”
“Dominant insect groups include Hemiptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Cantharidae, Coccinellidae, Miridae and Orthoptera that are distributed in the arid/dry steppe.”
“Other groups like Orthoptera and Diptera species are almost 45 percent and 40 percent endemic respectively.”
“The scattered angiosperms here and in the foothills supported some host-specific herbivores with associated predators; they were also exploited (especially after exceptional rains) by a number of Orthoptera, Hemiptera, and Lepidoptera derived from migratory African populations and perhaps reinforced at intervals by additional groups of colonists.”
“Invertebrate stocks that colonized Ascension underwent a variety of evolutionary changes including phyletic evolution leading to endemic status, adaptation to subterranean life (Araneae, Pseudoscorpiones, Collembola, and Psocoptera), character release (phorid Diptera), and probably splitting of lineages (speciation) within the island (Isopoda, Collembola, and gryllid Orthoptera).”
“Numerous insect groups (Orthoptera, Homoptera, Tenebrionidae, Meloidae, Curculionidae, and Scarabaeidae) are well adapted to the arid desert steppe.”
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