empusa

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A genus of gressorial orthopterous insects, of the family Mantidæ, having foliaceous appendages on the head and legs, short antennæ, and a very slim thorax. E. pauperata is a prettily colored European species of rear-horse or praying-mantis.
2. n. A genus of lepidopterous insects.
3. n. In botany, the principal genus of Entomophthoreœ, including, as now understood, the species formerly referred to the genus Entomophthora. The species are parasitic upon insects. That upon the common house-fly is the one most frequently observed, forming a white halo of spores around dead flies adhering to window-panes in autumn. Spores of an Empusa, coming in contact with a suitable insect, enter it by means of hyphal germination and grow rapidly till the insect is killed, forming sometimes mycelium, but commonly, by budding, detached hyphal bodies of spherical or oval form. When the conditions are unfavorable to further growth the hyphal bodies may be transformed into chlamydospores, but under favorable conditions of moisture the hyphal bodies or chlamydospores produce hyphæ. At the tip of each is formed a single conidium in a sporangium similar to that of Mucor; or, instead of conidia, thick-walled and spherical resting spores may be formed, either asexually or by conjugation. Twenty-six species are now known in the United States, growing upon insects of all the hexapod orders.